Parable of the Talents

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 snatching 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.