Terra Nova: An Anthology of Contemporary Spanish Science Fiction Read Free Page B

did the interactions with other girls in her class.
    While at first they were all like one being
united by the need not to feel alone because they were out of touch
with their own mamas, they soon formed little groups. First it was
because their desks were together, but that changed with each rest
time. And unexpectedly, the fight began.
    Charni’s group of friens
became smaller while Latha’s grew. That in itself should not have
bothered her, since everyone was free to go wherever she wished in
the company of whomever she wanted. Still, it left her confused. In
the end, her friens did not get along well with Latha. That had
been transmitted many times, and yet … why, of all the groups they
could have joined, did they join up with someone they could not
stand?
    Charni had asked to other girls that and
they had told her, simply, that those were bad friens. That the
ideas that they had articulated with sounds were false and that
they had only spent time with them to get information and share it
with Latha.
    Why? That was what Charni asked herself
next. What sense did that make?
    And the more she wondered, the more absurd
everything became.
    At one point, when her
friens did not notice her presence, she heard the words of the
conversation they were having. As far as she could gather using
only sound, they were not speaking well of Charni. They used the
word “cheater” to define her, and this put her on alert because,
although she did not understand its meaning, the way it had been
used was unpleasant.
    Still, since she had not sensed the entire
interchange of information, she decided to ask them and clear up
her questions. In the end, if they did not like something about
Charni, why had they not told her it directly?
    But the conversation did not satisfy her
totally. They only used sounds and not textures on their contours
to offer her an explanation, even though they had been the ones who
had told her that good friens used more textures than sounds
because sounds could transmit falsehoods, but touch could not. So
what did that mean?
    And so as time went by, rest time after rest
time, her group became smaller and she felt more and more confused,
sad, and finally alone.
    What had she done wrong? Why had her
classmaes become so cruel and refused to share their contours? Why
had they preferred to join Latha? Why did beings tell lies?
    Suddenly, during one rest time, while she
delighted in the discovery of a new contour with a flavor and
texture she had never perceived before, she felt a number of girls
surround her, and by their scents, she recognized two of her former
friens among them.
    She had passed many rest times alone,
discovering the world on her own and memorizing information for
herself without the intention of sharing it with anyone, and
perhaps for that reason her contour tensed up and her senses
heightened, waiting for unexpected events. Something was not
good.
    “ What do you want?” she
asked calmly in spite of how upset she felt inside.
    The answer was not loud but tactile,
painful. Pinches, punches, slaps, scratches. So they had finally
decided to be sincere and use non-sound language, without lies,
making plain their rejection of her, right? Well, then, Charni also
had something to tell them.
    In spite of how her contour hurt and stung
her at that moment, she began to return their ideas of rejection
and added the hate and fury that she felt. Some responded with
cries of pain, others began to use bad words to insert more
information into their punches. Charni, however, only used the
language of textures. Sounds could be false, and she did not wish
them to have any doubt about what she was telling them.
    “ Don’t be foolish,
Charni,” one of her ex-friens yelled. “Don’t answer. You’re
outnumbered.”
    A sharp pain in her nose left her
half-stunned. She wanted to respond, but her being, her contour,
would not obey.
    She felt fury, a lot of fury. Things could
not end that way. She still had things to