“I'm a sharer, yes." I stared past her for a moment. "One of the best days of my life was when I realized that my daughter probably wasn't. You can't be 100 percent sure with babies, but I don't believe that she was. And I had a friend who had four sharer kids. He said he didn't think she was either." And where were Gray Mora's children now? What was happening to the lost little boys? Could there be anyone more vulnerable than little male sharers at the mercy of both men and other boys?
"Four sharer children?" Len demanded. "Four?"
I nodded.
"I think... I think my life would have been so different if my brother had been a sharer, too, instead of his normal, perfect self," Len said. "It was as though I had leprosy and he didn't You know what I mean? There was an idea once that people who had leprosy were unclean and God didn't much like them."
I nodded. "Who was the Paracetco addict in your family?"
"They both were—both of my parents."
"Oh, my. And you were the evidence of their misbehavior, the constant reminder. I suppose they couldn't forgive you for that"
She thought about that for a while. "You're right. People do blame you for the things they do to you. The men who kidnapped me blamed me because they had gone to so much trouble to get me, then there was no ransom. I don't remember how many times they hit me for that—as though it were all my fault."
"These days, projecting blame is almost an art form."
"You still haven't told me how you knew."
"Your body language. Everything about you. If you have a chance to meet others, you'll begin to recognize them. It just takes practice."
"Some people think sharing is a power—like some kind of extrasensory perception."
I shrugged. "You and I know it isn't."
She began to look a little happier. "When do we leave?"
"Monday morning just before dawn. Don't say anything about it to anyone."
"Of course not!"
"Are you all right for supplies?"
In a different tone, she repeated, "Of course not. But I'll be all right. I can take care of myself."
"We'll be traveling together for almost a month," I said. "The idea is that we should take care of ourselves and of one another. What do you need?"
We sat together quiet for a while, and she wrestled in silence with her pride and her temper.
"It's sometimes best to avoid towns," I said. "Some towns fear and hate travelers. If they don't arrest them or beat them, they chase them away. Sometimes at the end of the day, there are no towns within reach. And fasting and hiking don't go well together. Now let's go get you some supplies. I assume you stole the things you have now."
"Thank you," she said, "for assuming that."
I laughed and heard bitterness in my own laughter. "We do what we have to do to live. But don't steal while you're with me." I let my voice harden a little. "And don't steal from me."
"You'll take my word that I won't?"
"Will you give me your word?"
She looked down her long, thin nose at me. "You enjoy telling people what to do, don't you?"
I shrugged. "I like living, and I like being free. And you and I need to be able to trust one another." I watched her now, needing to see all that there was to be seen.
"I know," she said. "It's just that... I've always had things. I used to give clothing, shoes, food, things like that to the families of our servants at Christmas. About five years ago, my mother stopped seeing anyone except members of the family, and my father got into the habit of leaving the house servants to me. Now I'm poorer than our servants were. And, yes, everything I have, I've stolen. I was so idealistic when I was at home. I wouldn't steal anything. Now I feel moral because I'm a thief instead of a prostitute."
"While we're together, you won't be either."
"... all right."
And I let myself relax a little. She seemed to mean it. "Let's go get what you need, then. Come on."
wednesday, june 13, 2035
We're on our way and we've had no trouble. Len asked me whether I had anything to read when we stopped last night, and I handed her one of my two remaining copies of The First Book of the Living. We're not rushing and the days are long, so we don't have to push on until it's too dark to read.
We've traveled south to a state highway that will take us inland to I-5. Len gave no trouble about this. She did ask, "Why not walk right up the coast?"
"I want to avoid Eureka," I told her. “I was mugged last time I was there."
She made a grim face, then nodded. "God, I hope we can avoid that kind of thing."
"The best way to avoid it is to be ready for it," I said. "Accept the reality that it might happen, and keep your eyes and ears open."
“I know."
She's a good traveler. She complains, but she's willing to keep her share of the watches. One of the scary things about being alone is having no one to watch while you sleep. You have to sleep on your belongings, using them as a pillow or at least keeping them in your sleepsack with you, or someone will make off with them. The violent thieves are the ones who present the most obvious and immediate danger, but sneak thieves can hurt you. For one thing, they can force you to join them. If they steal your money or if you don't have enough money to replace the essentials they've stolen, then you have to steal to survive. My experience with collars has made me a very reluctant thief—not that I was ever an eager one.
Anyway, Len is a good traveling companion. And she's an avid reader with an active mind. She says one of the things she misses most about home is computer access to the libraries of the world. She's well read. She rushed through Earthseed: The First Book of the Living in one evening. Problem is, it wasn't intended to be rushed through.
1 know you wrote this book," she said when she'd finished it—a couple of hours ago. "Allie told me you wrote a book about something called Earthseed. Is this your real name? Lauren Oya Olamina?"
I nodded. It didn't matter that she knew. We've bedded down off the road, between of a pair of hills where we can have some privacy. We're still in country that I know—hills, scattered ranches, small communities, stands of young trees, open ground. Nice country. We walked through it many times from Acorn. It's less populated than it should be because during the worst years of the 2020s, a lot of people were burned out, robbed, abducted, or just killed. The small communities were vulnerable and the gangs swept over them like locusts. Many of the survivors looked for less crime-ridden places to live—places Like Canada, Alaska, and Russia. That's why so much was abandoned to the likes of us when we hunted building materials, useful plants, and old tools. Now, though, the land's familiarity doesn't comfort me. Then Len asks me a familiar question, and that is comforting, somehow.