Terra Nova: An Anthology of Contemporary Spanish Science Fiction Read Online Free PDF

member. We’ve all experienced a painful
spilling of information. So texture it. Violent in what
sense?”
    “ Sometimes he hits them,
sometimes he crushes them against a wall and twists their arm. One
even showed me the mark of his teeth on her shoulder.”
    The silence that followed those words felt
heavy, smothering. Charni thought she felt her heart catch in her
chest. What she had just heard not only seemed inconceivable, it
was aberrant.
    A man never hit or hurt a woman. Never. They
were there to protect them, and in exchange for this protection,
women helped them see so they could more effectively guard the
openings that gave access to the other world. It had always been
like that.
    “ All right.” Her mother
interrupted the thick silence. “Before trying to talk sense into
him, I’ll talk to Qjem and tell him what you’ve described. I don’t
think he can sit back when he finds out what one of the men under
his charge is doing. Meanwhile, relocate the women. Put the
peacemakers in the houses that this useless invalid entered, and
make sure that none of the women who help him talk about it. Men
are worse than girls two cycles old. They can’t tell one woman from
another if they don’t see or hear her often.”
    “ We shall do so, Kesha,”
they all replied in unison.
    My mother clapped quickly three times to
show that the meeting had ended and they could go. Then she waited
patiently for the women to answer by clapping three times to show
that they had found the exit and were leaving the house.
    Once she was alone, she called Charni to
give her the greeting she had not been able to do when she had
arrived.
    “ How was school?” she
asked, caressing Charni’s shoulder to complete the hug and
recognition of scents.
    “ Fine. As
always.”
    “ Did you learn anything
new?”
    “ Nothing very
interesting.”
    “ And what would have been
interesting for you?”
    “ I don’t know. Something
that didn’t involve wrecking my fingers sewing, for
example.”
    “ What kind of woman are
you if you complain about ever little thing that hurts?” she
answered as an affectionate scold.
    “ But, Mama, it’s not that.
It’s … ugh.” She could not help herself from moaning due to the
pinch she felt below her navel.
    “ Come on, it can’t be that
bad. Show me where it hurts.”
    Charni took her mother’s
hand and guided it to the center of the pain.
    “ Have you urinated yet?”
she asked with an unexpectedly serious tone while she felt
her.
    “ I just did.”
    “ And did you need to?” She
gently slid her hand between Charni’s legs. “You’re
wet.”
    “ I cleaned myself with the
urinating cloth. I swear, Mama,” she said ashamedly.
    But her mother did not seem to hear her. She
lowered her head, put her nose near her crotch and sniffed.
    “ Honestly, Mama. I don’t
know what happened to me. I drank when it was time and calculated
the same amount. Don’t yell at me like I was a two-cycle-old girl,
please.”
    “ No, Charni. You’re not a
girl anymore. Your internal time has arrived early.”
     
     
    Her internal time had arrived early, but
according to her mother this was not bad. Unexpected, but not
unusual. It could even be a good sign.
    Perhaps within a half a
cycle, when her body had adapted to the change, Charni could
incorporate a new unit of measure, the bleeding, a biological cycle
common to all women, but personal and unique. That is, although a
cycle could be divided into bleeds, the start of each one did not
have to coincide with the start of any other woman’s bleeding. It
was her internal time and no one else’s. Still, it should not be
taken as an exact time. Although a bleeding generally occurred
every twenty-eight terms, the same as times of abundance and
shortage, it could come earlier or later.
    Earlier was not especially bad. Puzzling,
perhaps inconvenient, but not bad. To come later needed special
attention to the number of terms or alarms that had passed since a
man had