Parable of the Talents p-2

by Butler, Octavia

  “Thinking is all I can do about it right now. I'm thinking about a safe place for us, a safe place for you when I'm dead."

  I winced.

  "I'm an old man, girl. I don't kid myself about that."

  "Bankole—"

  "I have to think about it. I want you to think about it too. Do that for me. Just think about it."

  Chapter 3

  □ □ □

  From EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING

  God is Change,

  And in the end,

  God prevails.

  But meanwhile ...

  Kindness eases Change.

  Love quiets fear.

  And a sweet and powerful

  Positive obsession

  Blunts pain,

  Diverts rage,

  And engages each of us

  In the greatest,

  The most intense

  Of our chosen struggles

  from Memories of Other Worlds

  I cannot know what the end will be of all of Olamina's dreaming, striving, and certainty. I cannot recall ever feeling as certain of anything as she seems to be of Earthseed, a be­lief system that she herself created—or, as she says, a net­work of truths that she has simply recognized. I was always a doubter when it came to religion. How irrational of me, then, to love a zealot. But then, both love and zealotry are ir­rational states of mind.

  Olamina believes in a god that does not in the least love her. In fact, her god is a process or a combination of processes, not an entity. It is not consciously aware of her— or of anything. It is not conscious at all. "God is Change," she says and means it. Some of the faces of her god are biological evolution, chaos theory, relativity theory, the uncertainty principle, and, of course, the second law of thermodynamics. "God is Change, and, in the end, God prevails."

  Yet Earthseed is not a fatalistic belief system. God can be directed, focused, speeded, slowed, shaped. All things change, but all things need not change in all ways. God is inexorable, yet malleable. Odd. Hardly religious at all. Even the Earthseed Destiny seems to have little to do with religion.

  "We are Earthseed," Olamina says. "We are the children of God, as all fractions of the universe are the children of God. But more immediately we are the children of our par­ticular Earth." And within those words lies the origin of the Destiny. That portion of humanity that is conscious, that knows it is Earthseed, and that accepts its Destiny is simply trying to leave the womb, the Earth, to be born as all young beings must do eventually.

  Earthseed is Olamina's contribution to what she feels should be a species-wide effort to evade, or at least to lengthen the specialize-grow-die evolutionary cycle that humanity faces, that every species faces.

  "We can be a long-term success and the parents, our­selves, of a vast array of new peoples, new species," she says, "or we can be just one more abortion. We can, we must, scatter the Earth's living essence—human, plant, and animal—to extrasolar worlds: 'The Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars.'"

  Grand words.

  She hopes and dreams and writes and believes, and per­haps the world will let her live for a while, tolerating her as a harmless eccentric. I hope that it will. I fear that it may not.

  ************************************

  My father has, in this piece, defined Earthseed very well and defined it in fewer words than I could have managed. When my mother was a child, protected and imprisoned by the walls of her neighborhood, she dreamed of the stars. Literally, at night she dreamed of them. And she dreamed of flying. I've seen her flying dreams mentioned in her earliest writings. Awake or asleep, she dreamed of these things. As far as I'm concerned, that's what she was doing when she created her Earthseed Destiny and her Earthseed verses: dreaming. We all need dreams—our fantasies—to sustain us through hard times. There's no harm in that as long as we don't begin to mistake our fantasies for reality as she did. It seems that she doubted herself from time to time, but she never doubted the dream, never doubted Earthseed. Like my father, I can't feel that secure about any religion. That's odd, considering the way i was raised, but it's true.

  I've seen religious passion in other people, though—love for a compassionate God, fear of an angry God, fulsome praise and desperate pleading for a God that rewards and punishes. All that makes me wonder how a belief system like Earthseed—very demanding but offering so little comfort from such an utterly indifferent God—should inspire any loy­alty at all.

  In Earthseed, there is no promised afterlife. Earthseed's heaven is literal, physical—other worlds circling other stars. It promises its people immortality only through their chil­dren, their work, and their memories. For the human species, immortality is something to be won by sowing Earthseed on other worlds. Its promise is not of mansions to live in, milk and honey to drink, or eternal oblivion in some vast whole of nirvana, its promise is of hard work and brand-new possibili­ties, problems, challenges, and changes. Apparently, that can be surprisingly seductive to some people. My mother was a surprisingly seductive person.

  There is an Earthseed verse that goes like this:

  God is Change.

  God is Infinite,

  Irresistible,

  Inexorable,

  Indifferent.

  God is Trickster,

  Teacher,

  Chaos,

  Clay—

  God is Change.

  Beware:

  God exists to shape

  And to be shaped.

  This is a terrifying God, implacable, faceless, yet malleable and wildly dynamic. I suppose it will soon be wearing my mother's face. Her second name was "Oya." I wonder what­ever possessed my Baptist minister grandfather to give her such a name. What did he see in her? "Oya" is the name of a Nigerian Orisha—goddess—of the Yoruba people. In fact, the original Oya was the goddess of the Niger River, a dynamic, dangerous entity. She was also goddess of the wind, fire, and death, more bringers of great change.

  from The Journals of Lauren Oya Olamina

  monday, october 4, 2032

  Krista Noyer died today.

  That was her name: Krista Koslow Noyer. She never re­gained consciousness. From the time we found her beaten, raped, and shot, lying naked in her family's housetruck, she's been in a deep coma. We've kept her and her wounded son in the clinic together. The five Dovetrees have moved in with Jeff King and his children, but it seemed best to keep Krista Noyer and her son at the clinic.

  Zahra Baker and Allie Gilchrist helped to clean them up, then assisted Bankole when he removed five bullets from their bodies—two from the mother and three from the son. Zahra and Allie have been working with Bankole longer than Mike and Natividad have. They're not doctors, of course, but they know a lot Bankole says he thinks they could function well as nurse practitioners now.

  He, all four of his helpers, and others who gave volunteer nursing care did their best for the Noyers. After Krista Noyer's surgery, Zahra, Natividad, Allie, Noriko Kardos, Channa Ryan, and Teresa Lin took turns sitting with her, tending her needs. Bankole says he wanted women around her in case she came to. He thought the sight of male strangers would panic her.

  I suspect that he was right. Poor woman.

  At least her son was with her when she died. He lay on the bed next to hers, sometimes reaching out to touch her. They were only separated by one of our homemade privacy screens when personal things had to be done for one of them. There was no screen between them when Krista died.

  The boy's name is Danton Noyer, Junior. He wants to be called Dan. We burned the body of Danton Noyer, Senior, as soon as we got it back to Acorn. Now we'll have to burn his wife. We'll hold services for both of them when Dan is well enough to attend.

  sunday, october 17, 2032

  We had a double funeral today for Danton Noyer, Senior and his wife Krista.

  Under Bankole's care, Dan Noyer is recovering. His legs and shoulder are healing, and he can walk a little. Bankole says he can thank the maggots for that
. Not only did the dis­gusting little things keep his wounds clean by eating the dead tissue, but they did no harm. This particular kind have no appetite for healthy, living tissue. They eat the stuff that would putrefy and cause gangrene, then, unless they're re­moved, they metamorphose and fly away.

  The little girls, Kassia and Mercy, had, at first, to be kept inside so that they would not run away. They had nowhere to go, but they were so frightened and confused that they kept trying to escape. When they were allowed to visit their brother they had to be kept from hurting him. They ran to him and would have piled onto his bed for reassurance and comfort if May and Allie had not stopped them. May seems best able to reach them. They seem to be adopting both women—and vice versa—but they seem to have a special liking for May.

  She's something of a mystery, our May. I'm teaching her to write so that someday she'll be able to tell us her story. She looks as though she might be a Latina, but she doesn't understand Spanish. She does understand English, but doesn't speak it well enough to be understood most of the time. That's because sometime before she joined us, someone cut out her tongue.

  We don't know who did it. I've heard that in some of the more religious towns, repression of women has become more and more extreme. A woman who expresses her opin­ions, "nags," disobeys her husband, or otherwise "tramples her womanhood" and "acts like a man," might have her head shaved, her forehead branded, her tongue cut out, or, worst case, she might be stoned to death or burned. I've only heard about these things. May is the first example of it that I've ever seen—if she is an example. I'm glad to say her terrible wound had healed by the time she came to us. We don't even know whether May is her real name. But she can say, "May," and she's let us know we're to call her that. It's al­ways been clear that she loves kids and gets along well with them. Now, with the little Noyer girls, it seems that she has a family. She's been sharing a cabin with Allie Gilchrist and Allie's adopted son Justin for the better part of a year. Now I suppose we'll have to either expand Allie's cabin or begin work on a new one. In fact, we need to begin work on two or three new ones. The Scolari family will be getting the next one. They've been cooped up with the Figueroas long enough. Then the Dovetrees, then the Noyers and May.

  Dan Noyer is staying with Harry and Zahra Balter and their kids now that he's well enough to get around on his own a little. It seemed best to get him out of the clinic as soon as possible once his mother died. May is already sharing her one room with the two little girls, so Bankole looked for space for Dan elsewhere. The Balters volunteered. Also, May's a sharer, and Dan still has bouts of pain. He doesn't complain, but May would notice. I do when I'm around him. There's no hyperempathy in the Balter family, so they can care for injured people without suffering themselves.

  It's been a busy few weeks. We've done several salvage runs with the truck and gathered things we've never been able to gather in quantity before: lumber, stone, bricks, mor­tar, cement, plumbing fixtures, furniture, and pipe from dis­tant abandoned ruins and from the Dovetree place. We'll need it all. We're 67 people now with the Noyer children. We're growing too fast.

  And yet in another way, we're only creeping along. We're not only Acorn, we're Earthseed, and we're still only a sin­gle tiny hill community squeezed into too few cabins, and sharing an almost nineteenth-century existence. The truck will improve our comfort, but... it's not enough. I mean, it may be enough for Acorn, but it's not enough for Earthseed.

  Not that I claim to know what would be enough. The thing that I want to build is so damned new and so vast! I not only don't know how to build it, but I'm not even sure what it will look like when I have built it. I'm just feeling my way, using whatever I can do, whatever I can learn to take one more step forward.

  ************************************

  Here, for our infant Earthseed archives, is what I've learned so far about what happened to the Noyers. I've talked to Kassia and Mercy several times. And over the past three days, Dan has told me what he could remember. He seemed to need to talk, in spite of his pain, and with me around to complain to Bankole for him and see that he has his medi­cine when he needs it, he's had less pain. On his own, he seems willing to just lie there and hurt Well, there's nothing wrong with being stoic when you have to be, but there's enough unavoidable suffering in the world. Why endure it when you don't have to?

  The Noyers had driven up from Phoenix, Arizona, where food and water are even more expensive man they are in the Los Angeles area. They sold their houses—they owned two—some vacant land, their furniture, Krista Noyer's jew­elry, sold everything they could to get the money to buy and equip an armed and armored housetruck big enough to sleep seven people. The truck was intended to take the fam­ily to Alaska and serve as their home there until the parents could get work and rent or buy something better. Alaska is a more popular destination than ever these days. When I left southern California, Alaska was a popular dream— almost heaven. People struggled toward it, hoping for a still-civilized place of jobs, peace, room to raise their chil­dren in safety, and a return to the mythical golden-age world of the mid-twentieth century. They expected to find no gangs, no slavery, no free poor squatter settlements growing like cancers on the land, no chaos. There was to be plenty of land for everyone, a warming climate, cheap water, and many towns new and old, privatized and free, eager for hardworking newcomers. As I said, heaven.

  If what I've heard from travelers is true, the few who've managed to get there—to buy passage on ships or planes or walk or drive hundreds, even thousands, of miles, then somehow sneak across the closed border with Canada to the also-closed Canadian-Alaskan border—have found some­thing far less welcoming. And last year, Alaska, weary of regulations and restrictions from far away Washington, D.C., and even more weary of the hoard of hopeful paupers flooding in, declared itself an independent country. It se­ceded from the United States. First time since the Civil War that a state's done that. I thought there might be another civil war over the matter, the way President Donner and Alaskan Governor—or rather, Alaskan President—Leontyev are snarling at one another. But Donner has more than enough down here to keep him busy, and neither Canada nor Russia, who have been sending us food and money, much liked the idea of a war right next door to them. The only real danger of civil war is from Andrew Steele Jarret if he wins the elec­tion next month.

  Anyway, in spite of the risks, people like the Noyers, hopeful and desperate, still head for Alaska.

  There were seven people in the Noyer family just a few days before we found the truck. There was Krista and Dan­ton, Senior; Kassia and Mercy, our seven- and eight-year-old orphans; Paula and Nina, who were 12 and 13; and Dan, the oldest child. Dan is 15, as I guessed when I first saw him. He's a big, baby-faced, blond kid. His father was small and dark-haired. He inherited his looks and his size from his big, blond mother, while the little girls are small and dark like Danton, Senior. The boy is already almost two meters tall—a young giant with an oldest-child's enhanced sense of responsibility for his sisters. Yet he, like his father, had been unable to prevent Nina and Paula from being raped and ab­ducted three days before we found the truck.

  The Noyers had gotten into the habit of parking their truck in some isolated, sunny place like the south side of that burned-out farmhouse. There they could let the kids spend some time outside while they cleaned and aired the truck. They could unroll the truck's solar wings and spread them wide so that the sun could recharge their batteries. To save money, they used as much solar energy as possible. This meant driving at night and recharging during the day— which worked all right because people walked on the high­ways during the day. It's illegal to walk on highways in California, but everyone does it. By custom now, most pedestrians walk during the day, and most cars and trucks run at night. The vehicles don't stop for anything that won't wreck them. I've seen would-be high-jackers run down. No one stops.

  But during the day, they park to rest and refuel.

  Danton and Krista Noyer kept t
heir children near them, but didn't post a regular guard. They thought their isolation and general watchfulness would protect them. They were wrong. While they were busy with housekeeping, several men approached from their blind side—from the north—so that the chimney that had not quite hidden them had blocked their view. It was possible that these men had spotted the truck from one of the ridges, then circled around to attack them. Dan thought they had.

  The intruders had rounded the wall and, an instant later, opened fire on the family. They caught all seven Noyers out­side the truck. They shot Danton, Senior; Krista, and Dan. Mercy, who was nearest to the truck, jumped inside and hid behind a box of books and disks. The intruders grabbed the three other girls, but Nina, the oldest, created such a diver­sion with her determined kicking, biting, gouging, and struggling, breaking free, then being caught again, that Kas­sia, free for an instant, was able to slither away from her captor and scramble into the truck. Kassia did what Mercy had not. She slammed the truck door and locked it, locked all doors.

  Once she had done that, she was safer than she knew. In­truders fired their guns into the truck's armor and tires. Both were marked, but not punctured, not much damaged at all. The intruders even built a fire against the side of the truck, but the fire went out without doing damage.

  After what seemed hours, the men went away.

  The two little girls say they turned on the truck's monitors and looked around. They couldn't find the intruders, but they were still afraid. They waited longer. But it was terrible to wait alone in the truck, not knowing what might be hap­pening just beyond the range of the monitors—on the other side of the chimney wall, perhaps. And there was no one to take care of them, no one for them to turn to. At last, stay­ing in the truck alone was too much for them. They opened the door nearest to the sprawled bodies of their parents and big brother.

  The intruders were gone. They had taken the two older girls away with them. Outside, Kassia and Mercy found only Dan and their parents. Dan had come to, and was sitting on the ground, holding his mother's head on his lap, stroking her face, and crying.