Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [2166]

The deputies all but ignored Bankole’s story and his questions. They wrote nothing down, claimed to know nothing. They treated Bankole as though they doubted that he even had a sister, or that he was who he said he was. So many stolen IDs these days. They searched him and took the cash he was carrying. Fees for police services, they said. He had been careful to carry only what he thought would be enough to keep them sweet-tempered, but not enough to make them suspicious or more greedy than they already were. The rest—a sizeable packet—he left with me. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 2166

Note

The scene’s menace is built from bureaucratic euphemism: ‘Fees for police services’ for a shakedown, ‘So many stolen IDs these days’ as the free-floating justification for doubting a man’s existence. The careful calculation of how much cash to carry — enough to sweeten, not enough to tempt — reads as a survival algorithm, and the trust in the final sentence lands as a quiet, unsentimental token.