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Communipaths
Suzette Haden Elgin
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ACE BOOKS
A Division of Charter Communications, Inc.
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York, N.Y. 10036
THE COMMUNIPATHS
Copyright ©, 1970, by Suzette Haden Elgin All Rights Reserved.
Cover art by Josh Kirby.


THE NOBLEST EXPERIMENT IN THE GALAXY other half of
Ace Double not included in this file
Copyright ©, 1970, by Louis Trimble Printed in U.S.A.


CHAPTER ONE
^»
I AM TESSA, and this is Gentle Thursday. Usually on Gentle Thursday there is so
much to do that I have no time for writing; but today is very different because this
morning they came and took Anne-Charlotte’s baby away. I am sorry they took the
baby, because I loved it very much. And of course with Anne-Charlotte so unhappy
no one can do anything but sit and try to bear it. Patrick suggested that since I am
younger and thus am less affected by Anne-Charlotte it would be a good thing if I
would try to write it all out—how it happened, I mean—and then perhaps we could
all read it over, what I wrote, and see if there was anything we could do. (I’m sure
there isn’t; the laws are very definite about babies like Anne-Charlotte’s.) But Patrick
thought it would be good for me, and so he tried to give me a strong motivation to
keep at it. He doesn’t need to do that anymore, not since I’ve turned ten, but it
seems to be a habit he can’t break.
At any rate, I’m going to try to write it all down, just as it happened, simply to
please Patrick. And I must do it quickly, since I’ve only the Log with its little bits
and scraps and notes to remind me, and Anne-Charlotte is very rapidly ruining the
way I remember it with swords and flames and a sort of fan that folds and unfolds
with a great slow dignity—and a lot of black, a great deal of black. Soon, if I’m not
careful, between what she is doing and the attempts of the others to make her forget,
I won’t be able to remember it clearly enough to write about it.
I don’t have much range yet, and that helps. I’ve come as far from the
livingdomes as I’m allowed to go, and picked out a really big Anais cactus with a
red parasol bloom that’s big enough around to shade me perfectly, and I’m sitting
here on the arm of the cactus with my feet propped up. It’s far away enough that not
much gets through except all that black from Anne-Charlotte, and that’s only likely