Free Terra Nova: An Anthology of Contemporary Spanish Science Fiction by Mariano Villarreal Page A

was that? It’s as if you’ve lost
the sense of smell, so they decide to cut off your nose. Yes, it
still has skin, so you can still feel with it, but you can’t smell,
curse it. What kind of justice is it to take a member that isn’t
good for anything?
    “ No. Chaid Khasat deserves
to have his arms and legs cut off in exchange for all the blows and
kicks he’s given to women, and to have his tongue torn out for all
the cunning lies he’s spread with it. His existence should be
reduced to a pathetic mumbling stump laying in his own urine and
feces. I could have accepted it if they had shut him up in a tiny
room without special care or visits except to be able to spit or
throw excrement at him as an entertainment for our girls and a
warning to men who think they can do the same things and get away
with it.
    “ And yet, I know that none
of this is going to happen because men think he can still be a man
whose job in this world is to serve as the last line of defense
against a possible invasion. They probably think they have him
restrained, subjugated, perhaps even under their control, so he can
fulfill this function and little more. But he will still be useful,
still strong enough to hit us and still perceive himself as a man.
And he does not deserve to keep that distinction.
    “ For that reason, and
given the small margin of time that we have been left,” she left
out Lain’s name but her tone made it implicit “I will take the
responsibility and will abandon my position as other women have had
the honor to do before me. Go and prepare yourselves to name my
successor: this will be my last order as queen. And Charni, for
your own good, you’ll have to be the one who oversees my
renunciation.”
    The women understood the emphatic meaning of
these words and that the decision could not be appealed. They came
to their queen and embraced her, caressed her, kissed her, and wept
while they wrote words of support and thanks. They told her how she
had always been just and how much they would miss her, although
they would have to overcome her loss quickly.
    Charni, on the other hand, remained anchored
in place like a man, without the strength to move or react. For all
that her mother had prepared her during cycles and cycles for this
eventuality, she found it hard to accept that it was actually
happening.
    No. No. Why had Lain been so cruel? Why did
Charni have to be the one to betray the queen and make sure she
left her position? Why did she have so little time to prepare
herself mentally? Why? Why?
    It hardly mattered what was implicit in the
position, and what was the least that could be expected of a queen:
to be responsible and just to maintain the well-being of all
Ksatrya women. Why? Why?
    Why would her mother have to die?
     
     
    “Do you think I like this,
I’m enjoying it? Well, you’re wrong. I like this as little as you
do.”
    Qjem’s powerful voice
echoed from each wall, each corner, each heart of the women present
who, in absolute silence, listened to the elderly man’s irate
sermon.
    The old queen Kesha was probably not far
from him, probably on her knees, although Qjem would not be aware
that the position of queen had been transferred to another
woman.
    The speech had been spit out with rancor and
rage. Above all rage. Charni knew the old man and had been intimate
with him to the point of having him as her assistant, so she had a
vague idea of how he must be feeling. Frustrated. Forced by the
circumstances. But the law was the law and Ksatrya women knew that
well.
    And although he felt that he was striking
terror in all the women around him, the old leader did not know
that he was present at the final public ovation by Ksatrya women
for their former queen and the highest honor that she could have
aspired to. To die for all of them. For the good of all of them.
For their safety.
    “ Still,” Qjem continued,
“I must do what I am obliged to. I cannot consent in any way that
one of you may think you can