Parable of the Talents p-2

by Butler, Octavia

She just looked at me.

  "I don't know why he told me you were dead. Maybe he was just... lonely. I don't know. We got along, he and I, right from the first. I still live in one of his houses. I can af­ford a place of my own now, but it's like I said. We're a fam­ily." I paused, then said something 1 had never admitted before. "You know, I never felt that anyone loved me before I met him. And I guess I never loved anyone until he loved me. He made it... safe to love him back."

  "Your father and I both loved you," she said. "We had tried for two years to have a baby. We worried about his age. We worried about the way the world was—all the chaos. But we wanted you so much. And when you were born, we loved you more than you can imagine. When you were taken, and your father was killed ... 1 felt for a while as though I'd died myself. I tried so hard for so long to find you."

  I didn't know what to say to that. I shrugged uncomfort­ably. She hadn't found me. And Uncle Marc had. I wondered just how hard she'd really looked.

  "I didn't even know whether you were still alive," she said. "1 wanted to believe you were, but I didn't know. 1 got involved in a lawsuit with Christian America back in the for­ties, and 1 tried to force them to tell me what had happened to you. They claimed that any record there may have been of you was lost in a fire at the Pelican Bay Children's Home years before."

  Had they said that? I supposed they might have. They would have said almost anything to avoid giving up evi­dence of their abductions—and giving a Christian American child back to a heathen cult leader. But still, "Uncle Marc says he found me when I was two or three years old," 1 said. "But he saw that I had good Christian American parents, and he thought it would be best for me to stay with them, undisturbed." I shouldn't have said that. I'm not sure why I did.

  She got up and began to walk again—quick, angry pac­ing, prowling the room. "I never thought he would do that to me," she said. "I never thought he hated me enough to do a thing like that. I never thought he could hate anyone that much. I saved him from slavery! I saved his worthless life, goddamnit!"

  "He doesn't hate you," I said. "I'm sure he doesn't. I've never known him to hate anyone. He thought he was doing right."

  "Don't defend him," she whispered. "1 know you love him, but don't defend him to me. I loved him myself, and see what he's done to me—and to you."

  "You're a cult leader," 1 said. "He's Christian American. He believed—"

  "I don't care! I've spoken with him hundreds of times since he found you, and he said nothing. Nothing!"

  "He doesn't have any children." I said. "I don't think he ever will. But I was like a daughter to him. He was like a fa­ther to me."

  She stopped her pacing and stood staring down at me with an almost frightening intensity. She stared at me as though she hated me.

  I stood up, looked around for my jacket, found it, and put it on.

  "No!" she said. "No, don't go." All the stiffness and rage went out of her. "Please don't go. Not yet."

  But I needed to go. She is an overwhelming person, and I needed to get away from her.

  "All right," she said when I headed for the door. "But you can always come to me. Come back tomorrow. Come back whenever you want to. We have so much time to make up for. My door is open to you, Larkin, always."

  I stopped and looked back at her, realizing that she had called me by the name that she had given to her baby daughter so long ago. "Asha," I said, looking back at her. "My name is Asha Vere."

  She looked confused. Then her face seemed to sag the way Uncle Marc's had when I phoned him to ask about her. She looked so hurt and sad that I couldn't stop myself from feeling sorry for her. "Asha," she whispered. "My door is open to you, Asha. Always."

  The next day Uncle Marc arrived, filled with fear and despair.

  "I'm sorry," he said to me as soon as he saw me. "I was so happy when I found you after you left your parents. I Was so glad to be able to help you with your education. I guess ... I had been alone so long that I just couldn't stand to share you with anyone."

  My mother would not see him. He came to me almost in tears because he had tried to see her and she had refused. He tried several more times, and over and over again, she sent people out to tell him to go away.

  I went back home with him. I was angry with him, but even angrier with her, somehow. I loved him more than I'd ever loved anyone no matter what he had done, and she was hurting him. I didn't know whether I would ever see her again. I didn't know whether I should. I didn't even know whether I wanted to.

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

  My mother lived to be 81.

  She kept her word. She never stopped teaching. For Earthseed, she used herself up several times over speaking, training, guiding, writing, establishing schools that boarded orphans as well as students who had parents and homes. She found sources of money and directed them into areas of study that brought the fulfillment of the Earthseed Destiny closer. She sent promising young students to uni­versities that helped them to fulfill their own potential.

  All that she did, she did for Earthseed. I did see her again occasionally, but Earthseed was her first "child," and in some ways her only "child."

  She was planning a lecture tour when her heart stopped just after her eighty-first birthday. She saw the first shuttles leave for the first starship assembled partly on the Moon and partly in orbit. I was not on any of the shuttles, of course. Neither was Uncle Marc, and neither of us has children.

  But Justin Gilchrist was on that ship. He shouldn't have been at his age, of course, but he was. And the son of Jes­sica Faircloth has gone, ironically. He's a biologist. The Mora girls, their children, and the whole surviving Douglas family have gone. They, in particular, were her family. All Earthseed was her family. We never really were, Uncle Marc and I. She never really needed us, so we didn't let ourselves need her. Here is the last journal entry of hers that seems to apply to her long, narrow story.

  from The Journals of Lauren Oya Olamina

  thursday, july 20, 2090

  I know what I've done.

  I have not given them heaven, but I've helped them to give themselves the heavens. I can't give them individual immortality, but I've helped them to give our species its only chance at immortality. I've helped them to the next stage of growth. They're young adults now, leaving the nest. It will be rough on them out there. It's always rough on the young when they leave the protection of the mother. It will take a toll—perhaps a heavy one. I don't like to think about that, but I know it's true. Out there, though, among the stars on the living worlds we already know about and on other worlds that we haven't yet dreamed of, some will survive and change and thrive and some will suffer and die.

  Earthseed was always true. I've made it real, given it substance. Not that I ever had a choice in the matter. If you want a thing—truly want it, want it so badly that you need it as you need air to breathe, then unless you die, you will have it. Why not? It has you. There is no escape. What a cruel and terrible thing escape would be if escape were possible.

  The shuttles are fat, squat, ugly, ancient-looking space trucks. They look as though they could be a hundred years old. They're very different from the early ones under the skin, of course. The skin itself is substantially different. But except for being larger, today's space shuttles don't look that different from those a hundred years ago. I've seen pictures of the old ones.

  Today's shuttles have been loaded with cargoes of peo­ple, already deeply asleep in DiaPause—the suspended-animation process that seems to be the best of the bunch. Traveling with the people are frozen human and animal embryos, plant seeds, tools, equipment, memories, dreams, and hopes. As big and as spaceworthy as they are, the shut­tles should sag to the Earth under such a load. The memo­ries alone should overload them. The libraries of the Earth go with them. All this is to be off-loaded on the Earth's first starship, the Christopher Columbus.

  I object to the name. This ship is not about a shortcut to riches and empire. It's not about snat
ching up slaves and gold and presenting them to some European monarch. But one can't win every battle. One must know which battles to fight. The name is nothing.

  I couldn't have watched this first Departure on a screen or in a virtual room or in some personalized version be­neath a Dreamask. I would have traveled across the world on foot to see this Departure if I'd had to. This is my life flying away on these ugly big trucks. This is my immortal­ity. I have a right to see it, hear the thunder of it, smell it.

  I will go with the first ship to leave after my death. If I thought I could survive as something other than a burden, I would go on this one, alive. No matter. Let them some­day use my ashes to fertilize their crops. Let them do that. It's arranged. I'll go, and they'll give me to their orchards and their groves.

  Now, with my friends and the children of my friends, I watch. Lacy Figueroa, Myra Cho, Edison Balter and his daughter, Jan, and Harry Balter, bent, gray, and smiling. It took Harry so long to learn to smile again after the loss of Zahra and the children. He's a man who should smile. He stands with one arm around his granddaughter and the other around me. He's my age. Eighty-one. Impossible. Eighty-one! God is Change.

  My Larkin would not come. I begged her, but she re­fused. She's caring for Marc. He's just getting over an­other heart transplant. How completely, how thoroughly he has stolen my child. I have never even tried to forgive him.

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

  Now, I watch as, one by one, the ships lift their cargoes from the Earth. I feel alone with my thoughts until I reach out to hug each of my friends and look into their loved faces, this one solemn, that one joyous, all of them wet with tears. Except for Harry, they'll all go soon in these same shuttles. Perhaps Harry's ashes and mine will keep company someday. The Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars, after all, and not to be filled with preservative poisons, boxed up at great expense, as is the revived fashion now, and buried uselessly in some ceme­tery.

  I know what I've done.

  For the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country, who called his own servants, and de­livered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey.

  Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same and made them other five talents. And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. But he that had received one went and digged in the earth and hid his lord's money.

  After a long time the lord of these servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. And so he that had received five talents came and brought the other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliverest unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five tal­ents more.

  His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

  He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliverest unto me two talents: be­hold, I have gained two other talents beside them.

  His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

  Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gather­ing where thou has not strawed: And I was aftaid and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast what is thine.

  His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where 1 sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.

  Take therefore the talent from him and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.

  the bible

  authorized king james version

  st. matthew 25:14-30

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

  ABOUT octavia e. butler

  octavia e. butler writes: "I am a 53 -year-old writer who can remember being a 10 -year-old writer and who expects someday to be an 80- year-old writer. I'm also comfortably asocial—a hermit in the middle of Seattle—a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.

  I've had 11 novels published so far: Patternmaster, Mind of My Mind, Survivor, Kindred, Wild Seed, Clay's Ark, Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago, Parable of the Sower,

  and Parable of the Talents, as well as a collection of my shorter work, entitled Bloodchild. I've also had short stories published in anthologies and magazines. One, "Speech Sounds," won a Hugo Award as best short story of 1984. Another, “Bloodchild," won both the 1985 Hugo and the 1984 Nebula awards as best novelette. My most recent novel, Parable of the Talents, won the 1999 Nebula for Best

  Novel."

  —Octavia E. Butler

  Of special Note: In 1995, Octavia E. Butler was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. The program, funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArtbur Foundation, rewards cre­ative people who push the boundaries of their fields. In 2000, she received the PEN Center West Lifetime Achievement Award.

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