My brother on the other hand, used to despise Jarret Now he says Jarret is just what America needs. And I'm afraid that it's me he's begun to despise. He blames me for the failure of his Gathering Day sermons. He's gained no followers. The Peraltas like him and sort of agree with him. Pilar Peralta is more than half in love with him, but even they don't see him as a minister. They see him as a nice boy. In fact, that's the way most people here in Acorn see him. He thinks this is my fault. He believes, he insists, that I coached people to attack and humiliate him at all three Gatherings. And he says with a weary, irritating, honest smile, "I forgive you.
I might have done the same thing to protect my turf if I had any turf to protect."
I think it was the smile that made me say more than I should have. "The truth is," I told him, "you were given a special privilege. If you were anyone else, you could have been expelled for preaching another belief system. I let you do it because you've been through so much hell, and I knew it was important to you. And because you're my brother." I would have called back the words if I could have. He would hear pity in them. He would hear condescension.
For a long moment, he stared at me. I watched him get angry—very angry. Then he seemed to push his anger away. He refused to react to it He shrugged.
“Think of the Gatherings you've attended," I said to him. "Name even one that didn't involve questions, challenges, argument It's our way. I did warn you. Anyone can be questioned on any subject they choose to teach or advocate. I told you that we were serious about it. We learn at least as much by discussion as by lecture, demonstration, or experience."
"Forget about it," he said. "It's done. I don't blame you. Really. I shouldn't have tried my hand here. I'll make a place for myself somewhere else."
Still no anger expressed. Yet he was furious. He wouldn't show it and he wouldn't talk about it, but it came off him like heat Perhaps that's what a collar teaches—a horrible kind of self-control. Or perhaps not. My brother was always a self-contained person. He knew how to be unreachable.
I sighed and gave him as much money as I could afford, plus a rifle, a sidearm, and ammunition for both. He's not a very good shot with anything yet, but he knows the basics, and I couldn't let him go out and wind up in the hands of someone like Cougar again. The Peralta family had been with us for two years, so they had money and possessions as a result of their work with us. Marc did not We drove him and the Peraltas into Eureka. There, they might find homes and jobs, or at least they might find temporary shelter until they could decide what to do.
"I thought you knew me," I said to my brother just before he left us. "I wouldn't do what you're accusing me of."
He shrugged. "It's okay. Don't keep worrying about it" He smiled. And he was gone.
I don't know how to feel about this. So many people have come here and stayed or wanted to stay even if, for some reason, they couldn't. I had to expel a thief a year ago, and he cried and begged to stay. We had caught him stealing drugs from Bankole's medical supplies, so he had to go, but he cried.
As they left us, even the Peraltas looked grim and frightened. They were Ramiro, the father; Pilar, 18; Esteban, 17; and Eva, who was only two and whose birth at a rest stop along the highway had cost her mother's life. They had no other relatives left alive, no friends outside of Acorn who would help them if they got into trouble. And Esteban would be leaving them soon to enlist They had good reason to look worried.
Marc would be in the same situation once he left us. Worse, he would be all alone. Yet he smiled.
I don't know whether I'll ever see him again. I feel almost as though he's died... died again.
thursday, march 17, 2033
Dan Noyer found his way back to us last night.
He came back. Amazing. I think he's been gone longer than he was with us. We tried to find him—for his little sisters' sakes as much as for his. But unless you have the money to hire a small army of private cops like that guy in Texas, finding people in today's chaos is almost impossible. My finding Marcus was an accident. Anyway, Dan came home on his own, poor boy.
It was a cold night. We had all gone to bed except for the first watch of the night.
The watchers were Gray Mora and Zahra Balter.
Zahra was the one who spotted the intruders. As she described it to me later, she saw two people running, staggering, sometimes seeming to hold one another up. If not for the staggering, Zahra might have fired a warning shot, at least. But before she revealed herself, she wanted to see who or what the runners were escaping from.
As she scanned the hills behind them, she tapped out our emergency signal on her phone.
There were five people chasing the staggering runners— or, with her night-vision glasses, she could see five. She kept looking for more.
One of the five shouted, then fell, and Zahra realized that that one must have blundered into the edge of our thorn fence. In the dark, some of our thorn bushes don't look that savage. They're pretty if you don't touch them. Some will even be covered with flowers soon. But they grab clothing and flesh, and they tear.
The injured one's four companions slowed, seemed to hesitate, then sped up again as the injured one limped after them.
Zahra put her rifle on automatic and fired a short burst across the path of the two front runners. They stopped short and dived into the thorn bushes and cactuses. One began to fire in Zahra's general direction. There were shouts of pain and loud curses. Then all five were shooting. Down in Acorn, we could hear the gunfire. Even without the phone, we would have known that it was corning from the area around Zahra's watch station.
Zahra and Harry are my oldest friends, and I'm Change-sister to them and Change-aunt to their kids Tabia and Russell. For that reason, I paid no attention to Bankole when he told me to stay in the house. I remember thinking that if this were another Dovetree-like raid, staying inside was only asking to burn.
But this didn't sound like what happened at Dovetree. It wasn't loud enough. There weren't enough attackers. This sounded like a small gang raid of a kind we hadn't had for years.
Bankole and I slipped out of the house together and headed for the truck. For most of the run, we were protected by the bulk first of our own cabin, then of the school. I suppose that's why Bankole didn't try as hard as he might have to make me stay behind. We couldn't be seen, let alone shot at. We keep the truck parked in its own space on the south side of the school. It's protected there in the center of the community, and during the day we can spread its solar wings and let it recharge its batteries.
Harry Balter reached the truck just as Bankole and I got there. He opened a side door, and all three of us scrambled in.
Harry and I have gotten comfortable with the truck's computers. In our earlier lives down south, we both used our parents' computers. We're unusual. Most adults at Acorn had never touched or even seen a computer before. Still others are afraid of them. For now, although we're passing on our knowledge, we're still among the few who take full advantage of what the truck can do with its weapons, maneuverability, and sensory systems.
We turned everything on, and Bankole drove us toward Zahra's current watch station. As we rode, we used the truck's infrared viewer to locate each of the intruders. Bankole is a good, steady driver, and he has confidence in the truck's armor. It didn't seem to bother him at all that people were shooting at us. In fact, it was a good thing the intruders were wasting ammunition on us. That gave Zahra some relief.
Then we had a look around, and we decided that one of the intruders was much too close to Zahra—and creeping closer. He could have been trying to get away, but he wasn't None of them were. We made sure the targets we had identified were, in fact, targets, and not our own people. Once we were sure, we pointed them out to the truck and let it open up on them. Along with the truck's ability to "see" in the dark via infrared, ambient light, or radar, it also has very good "hearing," and an incorrectly designated sense of "smell." This last is based on spectroscopic analysis rather than on actual smelling, but it is a kind of chemical analysis over a distance. It could be used on anything that emitted or reflected electromagnetic radiation—light—of some kind.