Parable of the Talents

  “Yes, you’ll come to Gathering every week.”

  “Will I get a vote?”

  “No vote, but you’ll get a share of the profit from the sale of the crop, and from the other businesses if things work out. That’s after you’ve been here for a year. You won’t have a decision-making role unless you decide to join. If you do join, you’ll get a larger share of the profit and a vote.”

  “It isn’t really religious—your service, I mean. You guys don’t believe in God or anything.”

  I turned to look at him. “Dan, of course we do.”

  He just stared at me in silent, obvious disbelief.

  “We don’t believe the way your parents did, perhaps, but we do believe.”

  “That God is Change?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “It means that Change is the one unavoidable, irresistible, ongoing reality of the universe. To us, that makes it the most powerful reality, and just another word for God.”

  “But…what can you do with a God like that? I mean…it isn’t even a person. It doesn’t love you or protect you. It doesn’t know anything. What’s the point?”

  “The point is, it’s the truth,” I said. “It’s a hard truth. Too hard for some people to take, but that doesn’t make it any less true.” I put my food down, got up, and went to one of our bookcases. There, I took down one of our several copies of Earthseed: The First Book of the Living. I self-published this first volume two years ago. Bankole had looked over my text when it was finished, and said I should copyright and publish for my own protection. At the time, that seemed unnecessary—a ridiculous thing to do in a world gone mad. Later, I came to believe he was right—for the future and for a reason in the present that Bankole had not mentioned.

  “Things will get back to normal someday,” he had said to me. “You should do this in the same way that we go on paying their taxes.”

  Things won’t get back to what he calls normal. We’ll settle into some new norm someday—for a while. Whether that new norm will recognize our tax paying or my copyright, I don’t know. But there’s a more immediate advantage to be had here.

  People are still impressed, even intimidated, by bound, official-looking books. Verses, handwritten or printed out on sheets of paper just don’t grab them the way a book does. Even people who can’t read are impressed by books. The idea seems to be, “If it’s in a book, maybe it’s true,” or even, “If it’s in a book, it must be true.” I went back to Dan, opened the book, and read to him,

  “Do not worship God

  Inexorable God

  Neither needs nor wants

  Your worship.

  Instead,

  Acknowledge and attend God,

  Learn from God,

  With forethought and intelligence,

  Imagination and industry,

  Shape God.

  When you must,

  Yield to God.

  Adapt and endure.

  For you are Earthseed,

  And God is Change.”

  I paused, then said, “That’s what we believe, Dan. That’s what we strive to do—part of what we strive to do, anyway.”

  Dan listened, frowning. “I’m still not sure what all that means.”

  “You’ll learn more about it in school. We say education is the most direct pathway to God. For now, it’s enough to say that verse just means that flattering or begging God isn’t useful. Learn what God does. Learn to shape that to your needs. Learn to use it, or at least, learn to adapt to it so that you won’t get squashed by it. That’s useful.”

  “So you’re saying praying doesn’t work.”

  “Oh, no. Praying does work. Praying is a very effective way of talking to yourself, of talking yourself into things, of focusing your attention on whatever it is you want to do. It can give you a feeling of control and help you to stretch yourself beyond what you thought were your limits.”

  I paused, thinking of how well Dan had done just that when he tried to rescue his parents. “It doesn’t always work the way we want it to,” I said. “But it’s always worth the effort.”

  “Even if when I pray, I ask God to help me?” he asked.

  “Even so,” I said. “You’re the one your words reach and strengthen. You can think of it as praying to that part of God that’s within you.”

  He thought about that for a while, then looked at me as though he had a big question, but hadn’t yet decided how to ask it. He looked down at the book.

  “How do you know you’re right?” he asked at last. “I mean, that guy who wants to be President, that Jarret, he would call you all heathens or pagans or something.”

  Indeed, he would. “Yes,” I said. “He does seem to enjoy calling people things like that. Once he’s made everyone who isn’t like him sound evil, then he can blame them for problems he knows they didn’t cause. That’s easier than trying to fix the problems.”

  “My dad says…” The boy stopped and swallowed. “My dad said Jarret’s an idiot.”

  “I agree with your dad.”

  “But how do you know you’re right?” he insisted. “How do you know Earthseed is true. Who says it’s true?”

  “You do, Dan.” I let him chew on that for a while, then went on. “You learn, you think, you question. You question us and you question yourself. Then, if you find Earthseed to be true, you join us. You help us teach others. You help others the way we’ve helped you and your sisters.” Another pause. “Spend some time reading this book. The verses are short and they mean what they say, although that may not be all that they mean. Read them and think about them. Then you can begin asking questions.”

  “I’ve been reading;” he said. “Not this book, but other things. Nothing to do but read while I could hardly move. The Balters gave me novels and things. And… I’ve been thinking that I shouldn’t be here, living soft, eating good food, and reading books. I’ve been thinking that I ought to be out, looking for my sisters Nina and Paula. I’m the oldest, and they’re lost. I’m the man of the family now. I should be looking for them.”

  That was the most alarming thing he had said so far. “Dan, we have no way of knowing—”

  “Yeah. No one knows if they’re alive or where they are or if they’re still together… I know. I keep thinking about all that. But they’re my sisters. Dad and Mom always told me to look out for them.” He shook his head. “Hell, I didn’t even look out for Kassi and Mercy. If they hadn’t saved themselves, I guess we’d all be dead.” He shoved his dinner away in self-disgust. He had already eaten most of it. But because we were on a bench rather than at a table, there was little room for shoving things. His plate fell off onto the floor and broke.

  He stared at it, tears in his eyes—tears that had nothing to do with broken china.

  I reached for his hand.

  He flinched away, then looked up from the plate and stared at me through his tears.

  I took his hand again, and looked back at him. “We have friends in some of the nearby towns,” I said. “We’ve already left word with them. We’re offering a reward for the girls or for information that leads us to them. If we can, we’ll snatch them. If we have to, we’ll buy them.” I sighed. “I can’t promise anything, Dan, but we’ll do what we can. And we need you to help us. Travel with us to street markets, stores, and shops in nearby communities. Help us to look for them.”

  He went on staring at me as though I might be lying, as though he could find the truth in my face, if only he stared hard enough at it. “Why? Why would you do that?”

  I hesitated, then drew a deep breath and told him. “We’ve all lost people,” I said. “Everyone here has lost members of their families to fire, to murder, to raids… I had a father, a stepmother, and four younger brothers. All dead. All. When we can save life…we do. We couldn’t stand it any other way.”

  And still, he stared at me. But now he was shaking. He made me think of a crystal thing, vibrating to sound, abou
t to shatter. I pulled him to me, held him, this big child, taller than me. I felt his tears, wet on my shoulder, then felt his arms go around me, hugging back, still shaking, silent, desperate, hanging on.

  FIVE

  ❏ ❏ ❏

  From EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING

  Beware:

  At war

  Or at peace,

  More people die

  Of unenlightened self-interest

  Than of any other disease.

  THE SELECTIONS I’VE OFFERED from my mother’s journal make it clear that in spite of her near nineteenth-century existence she paid attention to the wider world. Politics and war mattered very much. Science and technology mattered. Fashions in crime and drug use and in racial, ethnic, religious, and class tolerance mattered. She did see these as fashions, by the way—as behaviors that went in and out of favor for reasons that ran the gamut from the practical to the emotional to the biological. Human competitiveness and territoriality were often at the root of particularly horrible fashions in oppression. We human beings seem always to have found it comforting to have someone to took down on—a bottom level of fellow creatures who are very vulnerable, but who can somehow be blamed and punished for all or any troubles. We need this lowest class as much as we need equals to team with and to compete against and superiors to look to for direction and help.

  My mother was always noticing and mentioning things like that. Sometimes she managed to work her observations into Earthseed verses. In November of 2032 she had bigger reasons than usual to pay attention to the world outside.

  FROM The Journals of Lauren Oya Olamina

  SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2032

  News.

  Tucked away at Acorn as we are, we have to make a special effort to get news from outside—real news, I mean, not rumors, and not the “news bullets” that purport to tell us all who we need to know in flashy pictures and quick, witty, verbal one-two punches. Twenty-five or thirty words are supposed to be enough in a news bullet to explain either a war or an unusual set of Christmas lights. Bullets are cheap and full of big dramatic pictures. Some bullets are true virtuals that allow people to experience—safely—hurricanes, epidemics, fires, and mass murder. Hell of a kick.

  Well-made news disks, on the other hand, or good satellite news services cost more. Gray and Emery Mora and one or two others say news bullets are enough. They say detailed news doesn’t matter. Since we can’t change the stupid, greedy, vicious things that powerful people do, they think we should try to ignore them. No matter how many times we’re forced to admit we can’t really hide, some of us still find ways to try.

  Well, we can’t hide. So it’s best to pay attention to what goes on. The more we know, the better able we’ll be to survive. So we subscribe to a good phone news service and now and then we buy detailed world-news disks. The whole business makes me long for free broadcast radio like the kind we had when I was a kid, but that’s almost nonexistent in this area. We listen to what little is left when we go into one of the larger towns. We can hear more now because the truck’s radio picks up more than our little pocket radios can.

  So here are some of the most significant news items of the past week. We listened to some of them on a new Worldisk today after Gathering.

  Alaska is still claiming to be an independent nation, and it seems to have gotten into an even closer more formal alliance with Canada and Russia—northerners sticking together I suppose. Bankole shrugged when he heard that and shook his head. “Why not?” he said. “They’ve got all the money.”

  Thanks to climate change, they do have most of it. The climate is still changing, warming. It’s supposed to settle at a new stable state someday. Until then, we’ll go on getting a lot of violent erratic weather around the world. Sea level is still rising and chewing away at low-lying coastal areas like the sand dunes that used to protect Humboldt Bay and Arcata Bay just north of us. Half the crops in the Midwest and South are still withering from the heat, drowning in floods, or being torn to pieces by winds, so food prices are still high. The warming has made tropical diseases like malaria and dengue normal parts of life in the warm, wet Gulf Coast and southern Atlantic coast states. But people are beginning to adapt. There’s less cholera, for instance, and less hepatitis. There are fewer of all the diseases that result from bad sanitation, spoiled food, or malnutrition. People boil the water they drink in cities where there’s a problem and in squatter settlements with their open sewers—ditches. There are more gardens, and old-fashioned skills in food preservation are being revived. People barter for goods and services where cash is rare. They use hand tools and draft animals where there is no money for fuel or no power equipment left. Life is getting better, but that won’t stop a war if politicians and business people decide it’s to their advantage to have one.

  There are plenty of wars going on around the world now.

  Kenya and Tanzania are fighting. I haven’t yet heard why. Bolivia and Peru are having another border dispute. Pakistan and Afghanistan have joined forces in a religious war against India. One part of Spain is fighting against another. Greece and Turkey are on the edge of war, and Egypt and Libya are slaughtering one another. China, like Spain, is tearing at itself. War is very popular these days.

  I suppose we should be grateful that there hasn’t been another “nuclear exchange.” The one three years ago between Iran and Iraq scared the hell out of everyone. After it happened, there must have been peace all over the world for maybe three months. People who had hated one another for generations found ways to talk peace. But insult by insult, expediency by expediency, cease-fire violation by cease-fire violation, most of the peace talks broke down. It’s always been much easier to make war than to make peace.

  Back in this country, in Dallas, Texas, some fool of a rich boy went adventuring among the free poor of a big squatter settlement. He wound up wearing the latest in electronic convict control devices—also known as slave collars, dog collars, and choke chains. And with the collar to encourage him, he learned to make himself useful to a local pimp. I’ve heard that the new collars are damned sophisticated. The old ones—worn more often as belts—could only cause pain. They delivered shocks and sometimes damaged or killed people. The new collars don’t kill, and they can be worn for months or years at a time and used often to deliver punishment. They’re programmed to resist being removed or destroyed by delivering jolts of pain severe enough to cause unconsciousness. I’ve heard that some collars can also give cheap, delicious rewards of pleasure for good behavior by encouraging changes in brain chemistry—stimulating the wearer to produce endorphins. I don’t know whether that’s true, but if it is, the whole business sounds a little like being a sharer—except that instead of sharing what other people feel, the wearer feels whatever the person holding the control unit wants him to feel. This could initiate a whole new level of slavery. After a while, needing the pleasure, fearing the pain, and always being desperate to please the master could become a person’s whole life. I’ve heard that some collared people kill themselves, not because they can’t stand the pain, but because they can’t stand the degree of slavishness to which they find themselves descending.

  The Texas boy’s father spent a lot of money. He hired private cops—the kind who’ll do anything if you pay them enough—and they sliced through the squatter camp as though it were a ripe melon until they found the boy. And with that, bingo! Slavery was discovered in Texas in 2032. Innocent people—not criminals or indigents—were being held against their wills and used for immoral purposes! How about that! What I’d like to see is a state of the union where slavery isn’t being practiced.

  Here’s another news item. On the planet Mars, living, multicellular organisms have been discovered…sort of. They’re very small and very strange inside, although outside they look like tiny slugs…some of the time. They live at least four meters down in certain polar rock formations, and they’re not exactly animals. They’re a little like Terrestrial slime molds. And, l
ike slime molds, they go through independent single-celled stages during which they eat their way through the rocks, multiplying by dividing, resembling little antifreeze-filled amoeba. When they’ve exhausted the food supply in their immediate neighborhoods, they unite into sluglike multicellular masses to travel to new sites where the minerals they ingest are available. They don’t reproduce in their slug form as Terrestrial slime molds do. They seem to need the slug form only to produce enough of their corrosive antifreeze solution to enable them to migrate through rock to a fresh supply of food. They make soil in two ways. They eat minerals, pass these through their bodies, and shed a dust so fine and so slippery that, like graphite, it can work as a kind of lubricant. And they ooze through the rocks in their slug form, their corrosive slime dissolving trails, cracks, and making more dust.

  These creatures are living Martians! So far, though, all the specimens captured and examined at Leal Station died soon after being taken from their cold, rocky home. For that reason and others, they are both a great discovery and a great sadness. They are the last discoveries that will be made by scientists working for the U.S. Government.

  President Donner has sold the last of our Mars installations to a Euro-Japanese company, in fulfillment of one of his earliest campaign promises. The idea is that all nonmilitary space travel, manned and unmanned, should be privatized. “If it’s worth doing at all,” Donner said, “it should be done for profit, and not as a burden on the taxpayers.” As though profit could be counted only as immediate financial gain. I was born in 2009, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve heard people complaining about the space program as a waste of money, and even as one of the reasons for the country’s deterioration.

  Ridiculous! There is so much to be learned from space itself and from the nearby worlds! And now we’ve found living extraterrestrials, and we’re going to quit. I suppose that if the Martian “slime molds” can be used for something—mining, perhaps, or chemistry—then they’ll be protected, cultivated, bred to be even more useful. But if they prove to be of no particular use, they’ll be left to survive or not as best they can with whatever impediments the company sees fit to put in their paths. If they’re unlucky enough to be bad for business in some way—say they develop a taste for some of the company’s building materials—they’ll be lucky to survive at all. I doubt that Terrestrial environmental laws will protect them. Those laws don’t even really protect plant and animal species here on Earth. And who would enforce such laws on Mars?