Parable of the Talents

between ourselves and the enemy.

But what were we to do when the enemy was every­where?

Then, in the same instant, all seven of the maggots began firing. It took me a moment to realize that they were not fir­ing bullets, that, perhaps, we were not about to be killed. They were firing gas canisters. I kept running, hoping that others were doing the same. No matter what the gas was, it was not intended to do us good.

I headed through the young oak grove that was our ceme­tery toward the fold of a hill that I hoped would both shelter me and give me an easier path up over the first hill.

Then just ahead of me, a canister landed. Before it hit the ground, it began to spew out gas.

And my legs wouldn't hold me. I was running. Then I felt myself begin to fall. It was all I could do to manage not to fall on my baby, instead to have her fall on me. I heard her begin to cry—a thin, un-Larkinlike whimpering. I don't be­lieve I cried out. I know I never lost consciousness. It was a terrible gas. I still don't know the name of it. It took away most of my ability to move, but left me wide awake, able to hear and see, able to know that my people were being col­lected like driftwood, being carried or dragged away by uni­formed men.

Someone came to me, bent, and took Larkin from me. I couldn't move my head to see what he did with her. I couldn't struggle or protest or plead. I couldn't even scream.

Someone came for me and took me by the feet and dragged me over the ground, down the hill to the school. I was wearing denims and a light cotton shirt, and I could feel my back scraping over rocks and weeds. I could feel pres­sure—bumping and thudding. It didn't hurt as it was hap­pening, but I knew it would hurt. All the adults and older kids had been carried or dragged to the school. I could see several of them sprawled on the floor wherever their captors had dropped them. What I could not see were the babies and young children.

I could not see my Larkin.

At one point, I heard shooting outside. It came from the south side of the school, not far away. It sounded like the guns of our older truck. Perhaps one of us had reached the truck and tried to use it as Bankole, Harry, and I had back when Dan and Nina Noyer came home. That was hopeless. Our old housetruck wouldn't have been a match for even one maggot.  Then I heard a huge explosion. After that there was silence.

What had happened? Were the children involved? Not knowing was an agonizing torment. Utter helplessness was even worse. I could breathe. I could twitch a hand or a foot. I could blink. Nothing more.

After a while, I could whimper a little.

Sometime later, a man wearing the uniform of the day— black pants and a belted, black tunic with a white cross on its front, came to do something to us, to each of us. I couldn't see what he was doing until he got to me, unbuttoned three buttons of my shirt, raised my head, and fastened the slave collar around my neck.

************************************

It was that simple. They took Acorn. Its name is Camp Christian now. We captives were not able to do more than twitch, blink, or moan for over an hour. That was plenty of time to collar almost all of us.

No one collared Gray Mora. He had been a slave earlier in his life. He had never worn a collar, but he had spent his childhood and young manhood as the property of people who treated him not quite as well as they treated their cattle. They had taken his wife from him and sold her to a wealthy man who had seen her and wanted her. She was, according to Gray, a short, slight, very pretty woman, and she brought a good price. Her new owner made casual sexual use of her and then somehow, by accident or not, killed her. When Gray heard about that, he took his daughter Doe and broke free. He never told us exactly how he got free. I've always assumed he killed one or more of his masters, stole their possessions, and took off. That's what I would have done.

But this time, there was no escape. And yet Gray would not be a slave again.

I found out later that he managed to get to the housetruck, lock himself in, and fire on some of the maggots. That scratched them more than a little. Then, as the maggots began to fire on him and blow the housetruck's armor to hell, he charged one of them. He rammed it. There was an explosion. There shouldn't have been. The housetruck was as safe as it could be. Making it explode had to take a con­scious effort—unless it was the maggot that exploded. I don't know for sure. But knowing Gray, I suspect he did something to cause the explosion. I believe he chose to die.

He is dead.

I can't believe that any of this is true. I mean . . . there ought to be a different way to write about these things—a way that at least begins to express the insanity and the terri­ble, terrible pain of it all. Acorn has always been full of ugly stories. There wasn't an adult among us who didn't have one. But we'd come together, lived together, helped one an­other, survived, thrived, we'd done that! We'd