Parable of the Sower (26 page)

Of course. Slaves did that two hundred years ago. They sneaked around and educated themselves as best they could, sometimes suffering whipping, sale, or mutilation for their efforts.

“Did he ever catch you or her at it?” I asked.

“No.” Travis turned to look toward the sea. “We were careful. It was important. She never borrowed more than one book at a time. I think his wife knew, but she was a decent woman. She never said anything. She was the one who talked him into letting me marry Natividad.”

The son of the cook marrying one of the maids. That was like something out of another era, too.

“Then my mother died and all Natividad and I had was each other, and then the baby. I was staying on as gardener-handyman, but then the old bastard we worked for decided he wanted Natividad. He would try to watch when she fed the baby Couldn’t let her alone. That’s why we left. That’s why his wife helped us leave. She gave us money. She knew it wasn’t Natividad’s fault. And I knew I didn’t want to have to kill the guy. So we left.”

In slavery when that happened, there was nothing the slaves could do about it—or nothing that wouldn’t get them killed, sold, or beaten.

I looked at Natividad who sat a short distance away, on spread out sleepsacks, playing with her baby and talking to Zahra. She had been lucky. Did she know? How many other people were less lucky—unable to escape the master’s attentions or gain the mistress’s sympathies. How far did masters and mistresses go these days toward putting less than submissive servants in their places?

“I still can’t see change or entropy as God,” Travis said, bringing the conversation back to Earthseed.

“Then show me a more pervasive power than change,” I said. “It isn’t just entropy. God is more complex than that. Human behavior alone should teach you that much. And there’s still more complexity when you’re dealing with several things at once—as you always are. There are all kinds of changes in the universe.”

He shook his head. “Maybe, but nobody’s going to worship them.”

“I hope not,” I said. “Earthseed deals with ongoing reality, not with supernatural authority figures. Worship is no good without action. With action, it’s only useful if it steadies you, focuses your efforts, eases your mind.”

He gave me an unhappy smile. “Praying makes people feel better even when there’s no action they can take,” he said. “I used to think that was all God was good for—to help people like my mother stand what they had to stand.”

“That isn’t what God is for, but there are times when that’s what prayer is for. And there are times when that’s what these verses are for. God is Change, and in the end, God prevails. But there’s hope in understanding the nature of God—not punishing or jealous, but infinitely malleable. There’s comfort in realizing that everyone and everything yields to God. There’s power in knowing that God can be focused, diverted, shaped by anyone at all. But there’s no power in having strength and brains, and yet waiting for God to fix things for you or take revenge for you. You know that. You knew it when you took your family and got the hell out of your boss’s house. God will shape us all every day of our lives. Best to understand that and return the effort: Shape God.”

“Amen!” Harry said, smiling.

I looked at him, wavered between annoyance and amusement, and let amusement win. “Put something on before you burn, Harry.”

“You sounded like you could use an ‘amen,’” he said as he put on a loose blue shirt. “Do you want to go on preaching or do you want to eat?”

We had beans cooked with bits of dried meat, tomatoes, peppers, and onions. It was Sunday. There were public firepits in the park, and we had plenty of time. We even had a little wheat-flour bread and the baby had real baby food with his milk instead of mashed or mother-chewed bits of whatever we were eating.

It’s been a good day. Every now and then, Travis would ask me another question or toss me another challenge to Earthseed, and I would try to answer without preaching him a sermon—which was hard. I think I managed it most of the time. Zahra and Natividad got into an argument about whether I was talking about a male god or a female god. When I pointed out that Change had no sex at all and wasn’t a person, they were confused, but not dismissive. Only Harry refused to take the discussion seriously. He liked the idea of keeping a journal, though. Yesterday he bought a small notebook, and now he’s writing, too—and helping Zahra with her reading and writing lessons.

I’d like to draw him into Earthseed. I’d like to draw them all in. They could be the beginning of an Earthseed community. I would love to teach Dominic Earthseed as he grows up. I would teach him and he would teach me. The questions little children ask drive you insane because they never stop. But they also make you think. For now, though, I had to deal with Travis’s questions.

I took a chance. I told Travis about the Destiny.

He had asked and asked me what the point of Earthseed is. Why personify change by calling it God? Since change is just an idea, why not call it that? Just say change is important.

“Because after a while, it won’t be important!” I told him. “People forget ideas. They’re more likely to remember God—especially when they’re scared or desperate.”

“Then they’re supposed to do what?” he demanded. “Read a poem?”

“Or remember a truth or a comfort or a reminder to action,” I said. “People do that all the time. They reach back to the Bible, the Talmud, the Koran, or some other religious book that helps them deal with the frightening changes that happen in life.”

“Change does scare most people.”

“I know. God is frightening. Best to learn to cope.”

“Your stuff isn’t very comforting.”

“It is after a while. I’m still growing into it myself. God isn’t good or evil, doesn’t favor you or hate you, and yet God is better partnered than fought.”

“Your God doesn’t care about you at all,” Travis said.

“All the more reason to care about myself and others. All the more reason to create Earthseed communities and shape God together. ‘God is Trickster, Teacher, Chaos, Clay.’ We decide which aspect we embrace—and how to deal with the others.”

“Is that what you want to do? Set up Earthseed communities?”

“Yes.”

“And then what?”

There it was. The opening. I swallowed and turned a little so that I could see the burned over area. It was so damn ugly. Hard to think anyone had done that on purpose.

“And then what?” Travis insisted. “A God like yours wouldn’t have a heaven for people to hope for, so what is there?”

“Heaven,” I said, facing him again. “Oh, yes. Heaven.”

He didn’t say anything. He gave me one of his suspicious looks and waited.

“The Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars,’” I said. “That’s the ultimate Earthseed aim, and the ultimate human change short of death. It’s a destiny we’d better pursue if we hope to be anything other than smooth-skinned dinosaurs—here today, gone tomorrow, our bones mixed with the bones and ashes of our cities, and so what?”

“Space?” he said. “Mars?”

“Beyond Mars,” I said. “Other star systems. Living worlds.”

“You’re crazy as hell,” he said, but I like the soft, quiet way he said it—with amazement rather than ridicule.

I grinned. “I know it won’t be possible for a long time. Now is a time for building foundations—Earthseed communities—focused on the Destiny. After all, my heaven really exists, and you don’t have to die to reach it. ‘The Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars,’ or among the ashes.” I nodded toward the burned area.

Travis listened. He didn’t point out that a person walking north from LA. to who-knows-where with all her possessions on her back was hardly in a position to point the way to Alpha Centauri. He listened. He laughed a little—as though he were afraid to get caught being too serious about my ideas. But he didn’t back away from me. He leaned forward. He argued. He shouted. He asked more questions. Natividad told him to stop bothering me, but he kept it up. I didn’t mind. I understand persistence. I admire it.

S
UNDAY
, A
UGUST
15, 2027

I think Travis Charles Douglas is my first convert. Zahra Moss is my second. Zahra has listened as the days passed, and as Travis and I went on arguing off and on. Sometimes she asked questions or pointed out what she saw as inconsistencies. After a while, she said. “I don’t care about no outer space. You can keep that part of it. But if you want to put together some kind of community where people look out for each other and don’t have to take being pushed around, I’m with you. I’ve been talking to Natividad. I don’t want to live the way she had to. I don’t want to live the way my mama had to either.”

I wondered how much difference there was between Natividad’s former employer who treated her as though he owned her and Richard Moss who purchased young girls to be part of his harem. It was all a matter of personal feeling, no doubt. Natividad had resented her employer. Zahra had accepted and perhaps loved Richard Moss.

Earthseed is being born right here on Highway 101—on that portion of 101 that was once El Camino Real, the royal highway of California’s Spanish past. Now it’s a highway, a river of the poor. A river flooding north.

I’ve come to think that I should be fishing that river even as I follow its current. I should watch people not only to spot those who might be dangerous to us, but to find those few like Travis and Natividad who would join us and be welcome.

And then what? Find a place to squat and take over? Act as a kind of gang? No. Not quite a gang. We aren’t gang types. I don’t want gang types with their need to dominate, rob and terrorize. And yet we might have to dominate. We might have to rob to survive, and even terrorize to scare off or kill enemies. We’ll have to be very careful how we allow our needs to shape us. But we must have arable land, a dependable water supply, and enough freedom from attack to let us establish ourselves and grow.

It might be possible to find such an isolated place along the coast, and make a deal with the inhabitants. If there were a few more of us, and if we were better armed, we might provide security in exchange for living room. We might also provide education plus reading and writing services to adult illiterates. There might be a market for that kind of thing. So many people, children and adults, are illiterate these days… We might be able to do it—grow our own food, grow ourselves and our neighbors into something brand new. Into Earthseed.

❏ ❏ ❏

EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING

F
RIDAY
, A
UGUST
27, 2027
(from notes expanded S
UNDAY
, A
UGUST
29)

E
ARTHQUAKE TODAY
.

It hit early this morning just as we were beginning the day’s walk, and it was a strong one. The ground itself gave a low, grating rumble like buried thunder. It jerked and shuddered, then seemed to drop. I’m sure it did drop, though I don’t know how far. Once the shaking stopped, everything looked the same—except for sudden patches of dust thrown up here and there in the brown hills around us.

Several people screamed or shouted during the quake. Some, burdened by heavy packs, lost their footing and fell into the dirt or onto the broken asphalt. Travis, with Dominic on his chest and a heavy pack on his back was almost one of these. He stumbled, staggered, and managed somehow to catch himself. The baby, unhurt, but jolted by the sudden shaking, began to cry, adding to the noise of two older children walking nearby, the sudden talking of almost everyone, and the gasps of an old man who had fallen during the quake.

I put aside my usual suspicions and went to see whether the old man was all right—not that I could have done much to help him if he hadn’t been. I retrieved his cane for him—it had landed beyond his reach—and helped him up. He was as light as a child, thin, toothless, and frightened of me.

I gave him a pat on the shoulder and sent him on his way, checking when his back was turned to see that he hadn’t lifted anything. The world was full of thieves. Old people and young kids were often pickpockets.

Nothing missing.

Another man nearby smiled at me—an older, but not yet old black man who still had his teeth, and who pushed his belongings in twin saddlebags hanging from a small, sturdy metal-framed cart. He didn’t say anything, but I liked his smile. I smiled back. Then I remembered that I was supposed to be a man, and wondered whether he had seen through my disguise. Not that it mattered.

I went back to my group where Zahra and Natividad were comforting Dominic and Harry was picking up something from the roadside. I went to Harry, and saw that he had found a filthy rag knotted into a small, tight ball around something. Harry tore the rotten cloth and a roll of money fell out into his hands. Hundred-dollar bills. Two or three dozen of them.

“Put it away!” I whispered.

He pushed the money into a deep pants pocket. “New shoes,” he whispered. “Good ones, and other things. Do you need anything?”

I had promised to buy him a new pair of shoes as soon as we reached a dependable store. His were worn out. Now another idea occurred to me. “If you have enough,” I whispered, “buy yourself a gun. I’ll still get your shoes. You get a gun!” Then I spoke to the others, ignoring his surprise. “Is everyone all right?”

Everyone was. Dominic was happy again, riding now on his mother’s back, and playing with her hair. Zahra was readjusting her pack, and Travis had gone on and was taking a look at the small community ahead. This was farm country. We’d passed through nothing for days except small, dying towns, withering roadside communities and farms, some working, some abandoned and growing weeds.

We walked forward toward Travis.

“Fire,” he said as we approached.