Parable of the Talents (46 page)

I quoted,

"We are born

Not with purpose,

But with potential."

"We choose our purpose," I said. "I chose mine before I was old enough to know any better—or it chose me. Pur-pose is essential. Without it, we drift."

"Purpose," she said, and with an air of showing off, she quoted:

"Purpose

Unifies us:

It focuses our dreams,

Guides our plans,

Strengthens our efforts.

Purpose

Defines us,

Shapes us,

And offers us

Greatness."

She sighed. "Sounds wonderful. But then a lot of things sound wonderful. What are you going to do?"

"I'm no Jarret," I said, "but you're probably right about the need to simplify and focus my message. You can help me do that."

"Why should I?"

"Because it will keep you alive."

She looked away again. After a long silence, she said with great bitterness, "What makes you think I want to be kept alive?"

"I know you do. But if you stick with me, you'll have to prove it."

"What?"

"As a matter of fact, if you stick with me, you'll have all you can do to stay alive. Ideas like those in Earthseed aren't going to be popular for a while. Jarret wouldn't like them if he knew about them."

"If you have any sense, you won't draw attention to yourself. Not now."

"I don't intend to draw huge crowds or get on the nets. Not until Jarret has worn out his welcome, anyway. I do in-tend to reach out to people again."

"How?"

And I knew. I had been wondering as we spoke,

scram-bling for ideas. Len's comments had helped focus me.

So had my own recent experience. "I'll reach people in their homes," I said. "There's nothing new about door-to-door missionaries in small cities like Eureka, for instance. In L.A.

you couldn't do it. We may not be able to do it in Port-land either. Portland's gotten so big. But on the way there, and in the larger towns around Portland, it might work. Small cities and big towns. People in very large cities and the very small towns can be—will be—suspicious and vicious."

"Free towns only, I assume," Len said.

"Of course. If I managed to get into a company town, I might be collared for vagrancy. That can be a life sentence.

They just keep charging you more to live than they pay you for your labor, and you never get out of debt."

"So I've heard. You want to just knock on people's doors and ask to tell them about Earthseed? I hear the Jehovah's Witnesses do that. Or they did it. I'm not sure they still do."

"It's gotten more dangerous." I said. "But other people did it too. The Mormons and some other lesser-known groups."

"Christian groups."

"I know." I thought for a moment. "Did you know I was 18

when I began collecting people and establishing Acorn?

Eighteen. A year younger than you are now."

"I know. Allie told me."

"People followed me, though," I continued. "And they didn't only do it because they were convinced that I could help them get what they wanted. They followed me because I seemed to be going somewhere. They had no purpose be-yond survival. Get a job. Eat. Get a room somewhere.

Exist. But I wanted more than that for myself and for my people, and I meant to have it. They wanted more too, but they didn't think they could have it. They weren't even sure what 'it' was."

"Weren't you wonderful?" Len murmured.

"Don't be an idiot," I said. "Those people were willing to follow an 18-year-old girl because she seemed to be going somewhere, seemed to know where she was going. People elected Jarret because he seemed to know where he was going too. Even rich people like your dad are desperate for someone who seems to know where they're going."

"Dad wanted someone who would protect his invest-ments and keep the poor people in their places."

"And when he realized that Jarret either couldn't or wouldn't do either, he left the country. Other people will turn their backs on Jarret, too, in different ways. But they'll still want to follow people who seem to know where they're going."

"You?"

I sighed. "Perhaps. More likely, though, it will be people I've taught. I don't really have the skills that will be needed.

Also, I don't know how long it will take to make Earthseed a way of life and the Destiny a goal that much of humanity struggles to achieve. I'm afraid that alone might take my lifetime and yours. It won't be quick. But we'll be the ones who plant the first seeds, you and I."

Len pushed her black hair away from her face. "I don't believe in Earthseed. I don't believe in any of this. It's just a lot of simplistic nonsense. You'll get killed knocking on the doors of strangers, and that will be the end of it."

"That could happen."

"I want no part of it."

"Yes, you do. If you live, you'll accomplish more that's good and important than anyone you've ever known. If you die, you'll die trying to accomplish it."

"I said I want no part of it. It's ridiculous. It's impos-sible."

"And you have more important things to do?"

Silence.

We didn't talk anymore until we came to a road leading off into the hills. I turned to follow it, ignoring Len's ques-tions.

Where was I going? I didn't know at all. Perhaps I would just have a look at what lay up the road, then turn back to the highway. Perhaps not.

Hidden away in the hills, there was a large, two-story wooden farmhouse set back off the road. It was much in need of paint. It had once been white. Now it was gray. Alongside it, a woman was weeding her large vegetable garden. Without telling Len what I meant to do, I walked off the road, went to her, and asked if we could do her weeding for a meal.

"We'll do a good job," I said. "We'll satisfy you, or no food."

She stared at us both with fear and suspicion. She seemed to be alone, but might not be. We were clearly armed, but offering no threat. I smiled. "Just a few sandwiches would be awfully welcome," I said. "We'll work hard for them." I was dressed in loose clothing as a man. My hair was cut short.

Len tells me I don't make a bad-looking man. We were both reasonably clean.

The woman smiled in spite of herself—a tentative little smile. "Do you think you can tell the weeds from the veg-etables?" she asked.

I laughed and said, "Yes, ma'am." In my sleep, I thought.

But Len was another matter. She had never done any gar-dening at all. Her father hired people to work in their gar-dens and orchards. She had thin, soft, uncallused hands and no knowledge of plants. I told her to watch me for a while. I pointed out the carrots, the various green vegetables, the herbs, then set her weeding the herbs on hands and knees.

She'd have more control over what she pulled that way. I depended on her memory and her good sense. If she was angry with me, she would let me know about it later. Rag-ing at people in public wasn't her style. In fact, we had plenty of food in our packs, and we weren't yet low on money. But I wanted to begin at once to reach out to peo-ple. Why not stop for a day on our way to Portland and leave a few words behind in this old gray house? It was good practice, if nothing else.

We worked hard and got the garden cleaned up. Len mut-tered and complained, but I didn't get the impression that she was really suffering. In fact, she seemed interested in what she was doing and content to be doing it, although she complained about bugs and worms, about the way the weeds smelled, about the way the damp earth smelled, about getting dirty. . . .

I realized that while Len had talked about experiences with her family and with the servants and experiences with her kidnappers and with living on her own, scavenging and stealing, she's never talked about working. She must have done some small jobs for food, but working seems still to be a novelty for her. I'll have to see that she gets more experience so that even if she decides to go off on her own, she'll be better able to take care of herself.

Later in the day, when we had finished the weeding, the woman—who told us her name was Nia Cortez—gave us a plate of three kinds of sandwiches. There was egg, toasted cheese, and ham. And there was a bowl of strawberries, a bowl of oranges, and a pitcher of lemonade sweetened with honey. Nia sat with us on her side porch, and I got the im-pression that she was lonely, shy, and still more than a little afraid of us. What a solitary place the old house was, dropped amid grassy hills.

"This is beautiful country," I said. "I sketch a little. These rolling hills, blond grasses, and green trees make me want to sit drawing all day."

"You can draw?" Nia asked me with a little smile.

And I took my sketchpad from my pack and began to draw not the rolling hills but Nia's own plump, pleasant face. She was in her late forties or early fifties and had dark brown hair streaked with gray. Drawn back into a long, thick horsetail, it hung almost to her waist. Her plumpness had helped her avoid wrinkles, and her smooth skin was tanned a good even brown—a nice, uncomplicated face. Her eyes were as clear as a baby's, and the same dark brown as most of her hair.

Drawing someone gives me an excellent excuse to study them and let myself feel what it seems to me that they feel. That's what sharing is, after all, and it comes to me whether I want it or not. I might as well use it. In a rough and not altogether dependable way, draw-ing a person helps me
become
that person and, to be hon-est, it helps me manipulate that person.

Everything teaches.

She was lonely, Nia was. And she was taking an uncom-fortable interest in me-as-a-man. To curb that interest, I turned to Len, who was watching everything with sharp, in-telligent interest. "Wrap up a couple of sandwiches for me, would you?" I asked her. "I'd like to finish this while the light is right."

Len gave me a sidelong glance and used paper napkins to wrap two sandwiches. Nia, on the other hand, looked at Len almost as though she had forgotten her. Then, in a moment of confusion, she looked down at her hands—tools of work, those hands. She seemed more contained, more restrained when she looked at me again.

I didn't hurry with the drawing. I could have finished it much more quickly. But working on it, adding detail, gave me a chance to talk about Earthseed without seeming to proselytize. I quoted verses as though quoting any poetry to her until one verse caught her interest. That she could not conceal from me. To her credit, it was this verse:

"To shape God

With wisdom and forethought

To benefit your world,

Your people,

Your life.

Consider consequences.

Minimize harm.

Ask questions.

Seek answers.

Learn.

Teach."

She had once been a teacher in a public school in San Francisco. The school had closed 15 years after she began teaching. That was during the early twenties when so many public school systems around the country gave up the ghost and closed their doors. Even the pretense of having an edu-cated populace was ending. Politicians shook their heads and said sadly that universal education was a failed experi-ment Some companies began to educate the children of their workers at least well enough to enable them to become their next generation of workers. Company towns began then to come back into fashion. They offered security, em-ployment, and education. That was all very well, but the company that educated you owned you until you paid off the debt you owed them. You were an indentured person, and if they couldn't use you themselves, they could trade you off to another division of the company—or another company. You, like your education, became a commodity to be bought or sold.

There were still a few public school systems in the coun-try, limping along, doing what they could, but these had more in common with city jails than with even the most mediocre private, religious, or company schools. It was the business of responsible parents to see to the education of their children, somehow. Those who did not were bad par-ents. It was to be hoped that social, legal, and religious pressures would sooner or later force even bad parents to do their duty toward their offspring.

"So," Nia said, "poor, semiliterate, and illiterate people became financially responsible for their children's elemen-tary education. If they were alcoholics or addicts or prosti-tutes or if they had all they could do just to feed their kids and maybe keep some sort of roof over their heads, that was just too bad! And no one thought about what kind of soci-ety we were building with such stupid decisions. People who could afford to educate their children in private schools were glad to see the government finally stop wast-ing their tax money, educating other people's children. They seemed to think they lived on Mars. They imagined that a country filled with poor, uneducated, unemployable people somehow wouldn't hurt them!"

Len sighed. "That sounds like the way my dad thinks. I'm his punishment, I guess—not that he cares!"

Nia gave her a look of chilly interest. "What? Your fa-ther?"

Len explained, and I watched as, almost against her will, Nia thawed. "I see." She sighed. "I suppose I could have wound up homeless myself, but my aunt and uncle owned this house and surrounding farmland outright. This is mother's family home. I came to live here and care for them when my job ended. They were old and not doing well any-more. Even then they were renting the farmland to neigh-boring farmers.

They left the house, the land, and the rest of their possessions to me when they died. I keep a garden, some chickens, goats, rabbits. I rent the land. I survive."

I tried to ignore a sharp stab of envy and nostalgia.

Len said, "I like your garden." She stared out at the long, neat rows of vegetables, fruits, and herbs.

"Do you?" Nia asked. "I heard you complaining out there."