“You look terrible, Mama. I’m so sorry,” Hannah cried burying her face in my neck, “I couldn’t make it


    stop.”


    “I thought of you every day,” I told her honestly.


    “Thinking of you as a happy, healthy girl out exploring the world made me feel good. It still does.


    Damien and his Brothers will care for me now. You have to go. Don’t let them catch you here,” I said


    suddenly afraid if the other women saw her.


    “Who cares what they want,” Hannah said not releasing me.


    “I’d rather die here with you than be off having a fun time while they hurt you.”


    “It was fun?” I asked stroking her back. “Tell me what you did, what you saw.”


    I knew she wouldn’t Leave until she’d gotten the reassurance she came for. Despite my desire to see


    her safe, I desperately wanted to talk to her, too.


    We held each other and Hannah told me what she had been doing. I understood North, South, East,


    and West, so she used those directions to describe where she had been. She’d travelled to the nearest


    mountain range to the West, the one the men called the red mountains. The real name was the T’ylene


    Mountains. It wasn’t that different from here.


    The amazing trip had been the one she took North.


    “The men are all held along the equator of this, Mama. The rest of the is too dangerous


    for them. The equator is safe and temperate. In the North women live and work inrge groups…I


    guess you would say centers of civilization, maybe you could say cities. Some women only leave them


    once a year to rent some men and try to mate.”


    “Year?” I asked, “Like an Earth year?”


    “Yes, the women track time by the sun, like you did at home. I think a year is Longer here than on


    Earth. The men track time by the changing moons,” she continued.


    “The women track everything they can, including me. The women knew I would being before I got


    there. I am ‘Hannah, from the T’stan mountains, Nu-reeh’s daughter by a second’.


    ninjanovel


    Belonging ? N?velDram/a.Org.


    I didn’t know what to say to that and she continued to talk.


    “They haveputers, Mama, but not like on Earth. Theputers are living things. The technology


    the women have is amazing.”


    I was a little shocked as we sat down next to each other. “So this is an advanced world? I got the


    feeling it was still wild,” I mused.


    Hannah continued to exin. It was mostly uninhabited. The women had only tamed the mountain


    homes they Lived in, they left the world mostly to it’s natural state. She had seen amazing things as


    she flew.


    “It Looked Like what you would call a dinosaur,” she told me. “I talked to the other girls and one of them


    told me how the women had cleared the dangerous creatures away from the equator, away from the


    men.”


    “They Let the spaceships near the men,” I said quietly.


    “Yeah,” Hannah grunted, “cause the aliens are afraid to Land anywhere else on this crazy. The


    ces they Land have been cleared by the women and they prefer to deal with men, because they


    aren’t as scary. Once or twice they tried to take the men, that was an act of war. The women tear apart


    anyone that takes their precious, Little boys.”


    “Don’t be angry at the men, Baby,” I soothed.


    “How could I be, Mama? They are like children. I’m mad at the system, angry at very, and upset we


    can’t be together. This whole world is so stupid!” she fumed.