Parable of the Talents

That did startle me. 'You mean you want me to go, Zee?'

'Don't be stupid. You're the closest thing I got to a sister. You know damned well I don't want you to go. But... you should go.'

'I'm not'

1 would.'

I stared at her.

'I'd go to a better place if I could. I got two kids. Where do they go from here? Where's your little baby going from here?'

'Where would they go from Halstead? Halstead is like Robledo with a better wall. Why do you think there are peo­ple there who are planning to emigrate to Russia or Alaska and others who are just trying to hang on to their little piece of the twentieth century until they die? None of them is try­ing to build anything to replace what we've lost or to boost us to something better.'

'You mean like Earthseed? The Destiny?'

'Yes.'

'It ain't enough.'

'It's a beginning. It's a way of trying to build tomorrow instead of cycling back into some form of yesterday.'

'Do you ever stop preaching?'

'Am I wrong?'

She shrugged. 'You know I'm not religious the way you are. Besides, even if you go to Halstead, we'll still be here. And Earthseed will still be Earthseed.'

Would it? Maybe. But Earthseed is a young movement I couldn't walk away and leave it to a 'maybe.' I wouldn't walk away from it any more than I'd walk away from the baby I would soon be having. Someday, I want people to go from here and teach Earthseed. And I want what they teach to still be recognizable as Earthseed.

'I'm not going,' I said. 'And, Zee, I think you're a liar. I don't think you'd go either. You know that here at Acorn we're with you if you get into trouble. And you know we would take care of your kids if anything happened to you and Harry. Who else would do that?' She had been raised in some of the nastier streets of Los Angeles, and she knew about loyalty, about depending on her friends and having them depend on her.

She looked at me, then looked away. 'It's good here,' she said, staring out toward the hills to the west of us. 'It's bet­ter than I thought it could be when we got here. But you know it's nothing like as good as we had back in Robledo. For your baby's sake, you ought to go.'

'For my baby's sake, I'm staying.'

And she met my eyes again. 'You sure? Think about the fu­ture.'

'I'm sure. And you know damned well I am thinking about the future.'

She was silent for a moment. Then she sighed. 'Good.' Another silence. 'You're right. I wouldn't want to go, and I wouldn't want you to go either. Maybe that's because I'm as big a fool as you are. I don't know. But... we do have something good here. Acorn and Earthseed—they're both too good to let go of.' She grinned. 'How's Bankole dealing with things?'

'Not well.'

'No. He tries to give you what any sane woman would want and you don't want it. Poor guy.'

She went away, smiling. I was heading back to the read­ing and my sketch pad when Jorge Cho came up to me, sweaty and filmy from the game. He was with his girlfriend Diamond Scott, tiny and black and every hair in place as usual. I saw the question on their faces before Jorge spoke.

'Is it true that you're leaving?'

thursday, january 20, 2033

Jarret was inaugurated today.

We listened to his speech—short and rousing. Plenty of 'America, America, God shed his grace on thee,' and 'God bless America,' and 'One nation, indivisible, under God,' and patriotism, law, order, sacred honor, flags everywhere, Bibles everywhere, people waving one of each. His ser­mon—because that's what it was—was from Isaiah, Chap­ter One. 'Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate as overthrown by strangers.'