Parable of the Talents

  “You knew about your baby,” I said. “You knew he was dead, not suffering somewhere, not being abused by crazy people who think they’re Christians. I don’t know anything. But Justin is back, and now Jorge’s brother Mateo is back.”

  “I know, and you know that’s different. Both boys are old enough to know who they are. And…and they’re old enough to survive abuse and neglect.”

  I thought about that, understood it, turned away from it.

  “You still have a life,” she said.

  “I can’t give up on her.”

  “You can’t now. But the time might come…”

  I didn’t say anything. After a while I spotted one of the men I had gotten information from back before I began working in Eureka. I went off to talk to him, see whether he’d heard anything. He hadn’t.

  SUNDAY, JUNE 10, 2035

  It seems I’m to have a companion for my trip north. I don’t know how I feel about that. Allie sent her to me. She’s a woman who should have been rich and secure with her family down in Mendocino County, but, according to her, her family didn’t want her. They wanted her brother, but they’d never wanted her. She was born from the body of a hired surrogate back when that was still unusual, and although she looks much like her mother and nothing like the surrogate, her parents never quite accepted her—especially after her brother was born the old-fashioned way from the body of his own mother. At 18, she was kidnapped for ransom, but no ransom was ever paid. She knew her parents had the money, but they never paid. Her brother was the prince, but somehow, she was never the princess. Her captors had kept her for a while for sex. Then, she got the idea to make herself seem sick. She would put her finger down her throat whenever they weren’t looking. Then she’d throw up all over everything. At last, in disgust and fear, her captors abandoned her down near Clear Lake. When she tried to go home, she discovered that just before the Al-Can War began, her family left the area, moved to Alaska. Now, more than a year after her kidnapping, she was on her way to Alaska to find them. The fact that the war was not yet officially over didn’t faze her. She had nothing and no one except her family, and she was going north. Allie had told her to go with me, at least as far as Portland. “Watch one another’s backs,” she said when she brought us together. “Maybe you’ll both manage to live for a while longer.”

  Belen Ross, the girl’s name was. She pronounced it Bay-LEN, and wanted to be called Len. She looked at me—at my clean but cheap men’s clothing, my short hair, my boots.

  “You don’t need me,” she said. She’s tall, thin, pale, sharp-nosed, and black-haired. She doesn’t look strong, but she looks impressive, somehow. In spite of all that’s happened to her, she hasn’t broken. She still has a lot of pride.

  “Know how to use a gun?” I asked.

  She nodded. “I’m a damned good shot.”

  “Then let’s talk.”

  The two of us went up to Allie’s room and sat down together at the pine table Allie had made for herself. It was simple and handsome. I ran a hand over it. “Allie shouldn’t be in a place like this,” I said. “She’s good at what she does. She should have a shop of her own in some town.”

  “No one belongs in a place like this,” Len said. “If children grow up here, what chance do they have?”

  “What chance do you have?” I asked her.

  She looked away. “This is only about our traveling together to Portland,” she said.

  I nodded. “Allie’s right. We will have a better chance together. Lone travelers make good targets.”

  “I’ve traveled alone before,” she said.

  “I have too. And I know that alone, you have to fight off attacks that might not even happen at all if you aren’t alone, and if you and your companion are armed.”

  She sighed and nodded. “You’re right. I suppose I don’t really mind traveling with you. It won’t be for long.”

  I shook my head. “That’s right. You won’t have to put up with me for long.”

  She frowned at me. “Well, what more do you want? We’ll get to Portland, and that will be that. We’ll never see each other again.”

  “For now, though, I want to know that you’re someone I can trust with my life. I need to know who you are, and you need to know who I am.”

  “Allie told me you were from a walled community down south.”

  “In Robledo, yes.”

  “Wherever. Your community got wiped out, and you came up here to start another community. It got wiped out and you wound up here.” That sounded like Allie, giving only the bare bones of my life.

  “My husband was killed, my child kidnapped, and my community destroyed,” I said. “I’m looking for my child—and for any children of my former community. Only two have been found so far—two of the oldest. My daughter was only a baby.”

  “Yeah.” Len looked away. “Allie said you were looking for your daughter. Too bad. Hope you find her.”

  Just as I was beginning to get angry with this woman, it occurred to me that she was acting. And as soon as the thought came to me, it was followed by others. Much of what she had shown me so far was false. She had not lied with her words. It was her manner that was a lie—filled with threads of wrongness. She was not the bored, indifferent person she wanted to seem to be. She was just trying to keep her distance. Strangers might be dangerous and cruel. Best to keep one’s distance.

  Problem was, even though this girl had been treated very badly, she wasn’t distant. It wasn’t natural to her. It made her a little bit uncomfortable all the time—like an itch, and in her body language, she was communicating her discomfort to me. And, I decided, watching her, there was something else wrong.

  “Shall we travel together?” I asked. “I usually travel as a man, by the way. I’m big enough and androgynous-looking enough to get away with it.”

  “Fine with me.”

  I looked at her, waiting.

  She shrugged. “So we travel together. All right.”

  I went on looking at her.

  She shifted in her hard chair. “What’s the matter? What is it?”

  I reached out and took her hand before she could flinch away. “I’m a sharer,” I said. “And so are you.”

  She snatched her hand away and glared at me. “For godsake! We’re only traveling together. Maybe not even that. Keep your accusations to yourself!”

  “That’s the kind of secret that gets companion travelers killed. If you’re still alive, it’s obvious that you can handle sudden, unexpected pain. But believe me, two sharers traveling together need to know how to help one another.”

  She got up and ran out of the room.

  I looked after her, wondering whether she would come back. I didn’t care whether or not she did, but the strength of her reaction surprised me. Back at Acorn, people were always surprised to be recognized as sharers when they came to us. But once they were recognized, and no one hurt them, they were all right. I never identified another sharer without identifying myself. And most of the ones I did identify realized that sharers do need to learn to manage without crippling one another. Male sharers were touchy—resenting their extra vulnerability more than females seemed to, but none of them, male or female, had just turned and run away.

  Well, Belen Ross had been rich, if not loved. She had been protected from the world even better than I had been down in Robledo. She had learned that the people within the walls of her father’s compound were of one kind, and those outside were of another. She had learned that she had to protect herself from that other kind. One must never let them see weakness. Perhaps that was it. If so, she wouldn’t come back. She would get her things and leave the area as soon as she could. She would not stay where someone knew her dangerous secret.

  All this happened on Friday. I didn’t see Len again until yesterday—Saturday. I met with a few of the men who had provided me with useful information before—in particular with those who had been to Portland. I bought them drinks and listened to what they had to say, th
en I left them and bought maps of northern California and Oregon. I bought dried fruit, beans, cornmeal, almonds, sunflower seeds, supplies for my first aid kit, and ammunition for my rifle and my handgun. I bought these things from the George’s even though their prices are higher than those of most stores in Eureka. I wouldn’t be going to Eureka again soon. I would go inland for a while toward Interstate 5. I might even travel along I-5 if it seemed wise once I’d gotten there and had a look at it. In some parts of California, I-5 has become frightening and dangerous—or at least it was back in ʼ27 when I walked it for a few miles. In any case, I-5 would take me right into Portland. If I circled back to the coast and walked up U.S. 101, I’d have a longer walk. And U.S. 101 looked lonelier. There were fewer towns, smaller towns.

  “Big towns are good,” a man from Salem, Oregon, had told me. “You can be anonymous. Small towns can be mean and suspicious when strangers show up. If they just had a robbery or something, they might pull you in, put a collar on you, or lock you up or even shoot you. Big cities are bad news. They chew you up and spit you out in pieces. You’re nobody, and if you die in the gutter, nobody cares but the sanitation department. Maybe not even them.”

  “You gotta think about there’s still a war on,” a man from Bakersfield, California, had said. “It could flare back up anytime, no matter how much they talk peace. Nobody knows what more war’s going to mean to people walking on the highway. More guns, I guess. More crazy guys, more guys who don’t know how to do anything but kill people.”

  He was probably right. He had, as he put it, “been bummin’ around for more than 20 years,” and he was still around. That alone made his opinion worth something. He told me he had had no trouble going back and forth to Portland, even last year during the war, and that was good news. There were fewer people on the road than there had been back in the 2020s, but more than just before the war. I remember when I hoped that fewer travelers were a sign that things were getting better. I suppose things are getting better for some people.

  Len came to me just as I finished my purchases at George’s. Without a word, she helped me carry my stuff back to Allie’s room, where, in continuing silence, she watched while I packed it. She couldn’t really help with that.

  “Your pack ready?” I asked her.

  She shook her head.

  “Go get it ready.”

  She caught my arm and waited until she had my full attention. “First tell me how you knew,” she said. “I’ve never had anyone spot me like that.”

  I drew a long breath. “You’re what, 19?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ve never spotted anyone?”

  She shook her head again. “I had just about decided that there weren’t any others. I thought the ones who let themselves be discovered were collared or killed. I’ve been terrified that someone would notice. And then you did. I almost left without you.”

  “I thought you might, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could say to you that wouldn’t upset you even more.”

  “And you really are… You really…have it too?”

  “I’m a sharer, yes.” I stared past her for a moment. “One of the best days of my life was when I realized that my daughter probably wasn’t. You can’t be 100 percent sure with babies, but I don’t believe that she was. And I had a friend who had four sharer kids. He said he didn’t think she was either.” And where were Gray Mora’s children now? What was happening to the lost little boys? Could there be anyone more vulnerable than little male sharers at the mercy of both men and other boys?

  “Four sharer children?” Len demanded. “Four?”

  I nodded.

  “I think… I think my life would have been so different if my brother had been a sharer, too, instead of his normal, perfect self,” Len said. “It was as though I had leprosy and he didn’t. You know what I mean? There was an idea once that people who had leprosy were unclean and God didn’t much like them.”

  I nodded. “Who was the Paracetco addict in your family?”

  “They both were—both of my parents.”

  “Oh, my. And you were the evidence of their misbehavior, the constant reminder. I suppose they couldn’t forgive you for that.”

  She thought about that for a while. “You’re right. People do blame you for the things they do to you. The men who kidnapped me blamed me because they had gone to so much trouble to get me, then there was no ransom. I don’t remember how many times they hit me for that—as though it were all my fault.”

  “These days, projecting blame is almost an art form.”

  “You still haven’t told me how you knew.”

  “Your body language. Everything about you. If you have a chance to meet others, you’ll begin to recognize them. It just takes practice.”

  “Some people think sharing is a power—like some kind of extrasensory perception.”

  I shrugged. “You and I know it isn’t.”

  She began to look a little happier. “When do we leave?”

  “Monday morning just before dawn. Don’t say anything about it to anyone.”

  “Of course not!”

  “Are you all right for supplies?”

  In a different tone, she repeated, “Of course not. But I’ll be all right. I can take care of myself.”

  “We’ll be traveling together for almost a month,” I said. “The idea is that we should take care of ourselves and of one another. What do you need?”

  We sat together quiet for a while, and she wrestled in silence with her pride and her temper.

  “It’s sometimes best to avoid towns,” I said. “Some towns fear and hate travelers. If they don’t arrest them or beat them, they chase them away. Sometimes at the end of the day, there are no towns within reach. And fasting and hiking don’t go well together. Now let’s go get you some supplies. I assume you stole the things you have now.”

  “Thank you,” she said, “for assuming that.”

  I laughed and heard bitterness in my own laughter. “We do what we have to do to live. But don’t steal while you’re with me.” I let my voice harden a little. “And don’t steal from me.”

  “You’ll take my word that I won’t?”

  “Will you give me your word?”

  She looked down her long, thin nose at me. “You enjoy telling people what to do, don’t you?”

  I shrugged. “I like living, and I like being free. And you and I need to be able to trust one another.” I watched her now, needing to see all that there was to be seen.

  “I know,” she said. “It’s just that… I’ve always had things. I used to give clothing, shoes, food, things like that to the families of our servants at Christmas. About five years ago, my mother stopped seeing anyone except members of the family, and my father got into the habit of leaving the house servants to me. Now I’m poorer than our servants were. And, yes, everything I have, I’ve stolen. I was so idealistic when I was at home. I wouldn’t steal anything. Now I feel moral because I’m a thief instead of a prostitute.”

  “While we’re together, you won’t be either.”

  “…all right.”

  And I let myself relax a little. She seemed to mean it. “Let’s go get what you need, then. Come on.”

  WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 2035

  We’re on our way and we’ve had no trouble. Len asked me whether I had anything to read when we stopped last night, and I handed her one of my two remaining copies of The First Book of the Living. We’re not rushing and the days are long, so we don’t have to push on until it’s too dark to read.

  We’ve traveled south to a state highway that will take us inland to I-5. Len gave no trouble about this. She did ask, “Why not walk right up the coast?”

  “I want to avoid Eureka,” I told her. “I was mugged last time I was there.”

  She made a grim face, then nodded. “God, I hope we can avoid that kind of thing.”

  “The best way to avoid it is to be ready for it,” I said. “Accept the reality that it might hap
pen, and keep your eyes and ears open.”

  “I know.”

  She’s a good traveler. She complains, but she’s willing to keep her share of the watches. One of the scary things about being alone is having no one to watch while you sleep. You have to sleep on your belongings, using them as a pillow or at least keeping them in your sleepsack with you, or someone will make off with them. The violent thieves are the ones who present the most obvious and immediate danger, but sneak thieves can hurt you. For one thing, they can force you to join them. If they steal your money or if you don’t have enough money to replace the essentials they’ve stolen, then you have to steal to survive. My experience with collars has made me a very reluctant thief—not that I was ever an eager one.

  Anyway, Len is a good traveling companion. And she’s an avid reader with an active mind. She says one of the things she misses most about home is computer access to the libraries of the world. She’s well read. She rushed through Earthseed: The First Book of the Living in one evening. Problem is, it wasn’t intended to be rushed through.

  “I know you wrote this book,” she said when she’d finished it—a couple of hours ago. “Allie told me you wrote a book about something called Earthseed. Is this your real name? Lauren Oya Olamina?”

  I nodded. It didn’t matter that she knew. We’ve bedded down off the road, between of a pair of hills where we can have some privacy. We’re still in country that I know—hills, scattered ranches, small communities, stands of young trees, open ground. Nice country. We walked through it many times from Acorn. It’s less populated than it should be because during the worst years of the 2020s, a lot of people were burned out, robbed, abducted, or just killed. The small communities were vulnerable and the gangs swept over them like locusts. Many of the survivors looked for less crime-ridden places to live—places like Canada, Alaska, and Russia. That’s why so much was abandoned to the likes of us when we hunted building materials, useful plants, and old tools. Now, though, the land’s familiarity doesn’t comfort me. Then Len asks me a familiar question, and that is comforting, somehow.

  “Why did you write this?”

  “Because it’s true,” I answered, and from then until the time she lay down to sleep, we talked about Earthseed and what it meant, what it could mean and how anyone could ever accept it even if they happened to hear about it. She doesn’t sneer, but she doesn’t understand yet either. I find that I look forward to teaching her.