Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler Read Free Book Online Page A

out. Their old nine-millimeter semi-automatics would have had no chance against the truck's armor. But the little girls hadn't realized that.
    We got them home to Acorn, and they're getting baths, food, comfort, and rest. Bankole is working on their mother and brother. He was not happy to have new patients. Our clinic has never been so full, and he has all his students and some volunteers helping him. He says he doesn't know whether he'll be able to save this new mother and son. He has a few simple instruments and an intricate little diagnostic unit that he saved when he fled his home in San Diego five years ago. And he has a few medicines—drugs to ease pain, fight infection, and otherwise keep us healthy. If the boy lives, Bankole doesn't know whether he'll walk again.
    Bankole will do his best for them. And Allie Gilchrist and May are taking care of the little girls. The girls have been lucky, at least, in having us find them. They'll be safe with us.
    And now, at last, we have something we've needed for years. We have a truck.
    WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2032
    With all the work that my Bankole has had to do to help the wounded woman and boy and the wounded Dovetrees, he didn't get around to shouting at me over the truck incident until last night. And, of course, he didn't shout. He tends not to. It's a pity. His disapproval might be easier to take if it were quick and loud. It was, as usual, quiet and intense.
    "It's a shame that so many of your unnecessary risks pay off so well," he said to me as we lay in bed last night. "You're a fool, you know. It's as though you think you can't be killed.
    My god, girl, you're old enough to know better."
    "I wanted the housetruck," I said. "And I realized we might be able to get it. And we might be able to help a child. We kept hearing one of them crying."
    He turned his head to look at me for several seconds, his mouth set. "You've seen children led down the road in con-vict collars or chains," he said. "You've seen them displayed as enticements before houses of prostitution. Are you going to tell me you did this because you heard one crying?"

    "I do what I can," I said. "When I can do more, I will. You know that."
    He just looked at me. If I didn't love him, I might not like him much at times like these. I took his hand and kissed it, and held it. "I do what I can." I repeated, "And I wanted the housetruck."
    "Enough to risk not only yourself, but your whole team—four people?"
    "The risk in running away empty-handed was at least as great as the risk of going for the truck."
    He made a sound of disgust and withdrew his hand. "So now you've got a battered old housetruck," he muttered.
    I nodded. "So now we have it. We need it. You know we do. It's a beginning."
    "It's not worth anyone's life!"
    "It didn't cost any of our lives!" I sat up and looked down at him. I needed to have him see me as well as he could in the dim light from the window. I wanted to have him know that I meant what I was saying. "If I had to die," I said, "if I had to get shot by strangers, shouldn't it be while I was try-ing to help the community, and not just while I was trying to run away?"
    He raised his hands and gave me an ironic round of ap-plause. "I knew you would say something like that, Well, I never thought you were stupid. Obsessed, perhaps, but not stupid. That being the case, I have a proposition for you."
    He sat up and I moved close to him and pulled the blan-kets up around us. I leaned against him and sat, waiting.
    Whatever he had to say, I felt that I'd gotten my point across.
    If he wanted to call my thinking obsessive, I didn't care.

    “I’ve been looking at some of the towns in the area," he said. "Saylorville, Halstead, Coy—towns that are a few miles off the highway. None of them need a doctor now, but one probably will someday soon. How would you feel about living in one of those towns?"
    I sat still, surprised. He meant it. Saylorville? Halstead?
    Coy? These are communities so small