Dreamsnake

by Vonda McIntyre

  On the first day of his teaching week, he made up two lists of words (one list pastoral, one technological), cut them apart, and put the slips into two Styrofoam cups. We each drew one random word from each of the cups.

  We went off to lunch, moaning piteously about the ridiculous assignment: to write a story using both words. How could you write a story based on “Alpha Centauri” and “laughter,” or “psychoanalysis” and “lizard,” or “snake” and “cow”?

  I was never clear on how I ended up with “snake” and “cow.” Maybe the slips got mixed up. Maybe Avram didn’t consider snakes pastoral. Maybe it was a joke. In any event, I thought life was hard.

  “Why don’t you write a story with a main character named Snake?” said one of the other students. Then she laughed. She was one of the few people in the class who thought her two words were promising. (I don’t remember now what they were, but I do remember that she wrote a good story around them.)

  “All right, I will!” I said, provoked.

  That evening, the dorm hallway was deserted. Nobody stood around talking, nobody climbed the walls. Only one member of the class actually did climb the walls—and hide behind the ceiling beam to drop down on unwary passersby—though another liked to climb the roofs and try to figure out how to steal the gargoyles. Everybody was typing.

  Almost everybody. I was stymied. I had a main character named Snake, but what was I to do with the wretched cow?

  Somewhere around midnight the secondary meaning of cow, the verb form, wandered in out of left field (or possibly the back 40), and I wrote, “The little boy was frightened…”

  I got twelve pages into the story before I bogged down again. It’s tempting to claim I was tired, but in truth I couldn’t figure out what a serpent named Grass would do.

  I turned in my twelve pages the next day. As I remember it, almost everybody else turned in a completed story (good ones, too—at least half a dozen were published), but I had excuses. I wasn’t a student. I was the workshop organizer. I had a lot of organizing to do. I had to sulk because one of the local students threw a party and didn’t invite me. I had to track down some chicken feet so Avram could make soup.

  My story languished for several weeks, very badly stuck on page twelve. People asked me about it. I glared.

  Finally, during Terry Carr’s week as writer in residence, I realized that a serpent named Grass should have hallucinogenic venom. The idea came from out in the ozone (or maybe the back 40 again), and my only excuse for not realizing it sooner is that during the 1960s I was a science geek. I’m one of the few people around who understood Bill Clinton when he said he couldn’t inhale. My response to the question “Did you smoke dope in the ’60s?” is the minority reply: I admit I was too chicken.

  (The majority answer is “Of course—didn’t everybody?”)

  I stayed up all night writing the story of Snake and her serpents. In the morning I staggered to class and turned in my story and struggled to stay awake. That day’s stories came back, photocopied, and we all picked up our copies. I staggered back to my room (safely guarded by a poster Ursula K. Le Guin gave me: two buzzards on day-glo pink, the caption, “Patience, my ass! I’m going to kill something!”). I fell asleep.

  The door of my room burst open and slammed against the wall. Someone stormed in.

  I sat up, half asleep, completely disoriented.

  She flung the manuscript to the floor. She was, as it happens, the student who told me to name my protagonist Snake.

  “How dare you,” she cried, “write a story that makes me feel sorry for snakes!”

  And stormed out again, slamming the door behind her.

  “Huh,” I said, and went back to sleep.

  The next day the story got a pretty good reception, though the class snake expert and boa constrictor owner said that even genetic engineering would not excuse a venomous python. Never mind, I said, it’s too heavy to carry, I’ll make it a cobra. Terry Carr said he would be willing to look at the polished story for his extremely prestigious anthology, Universe.

  I was pretty puffed up by the end of class.

  A week or so later, as I was putting the finishing touches on the story, I got a postcard from Terry telling me not to bother submitting it; he didn’t want to see it after all. I never did sell Terry Carr an original story.

  Instead, I sent “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand” to Analog. It isn’t what you’d normally think of as an Analog story, but Analog was the magazine I grew up reading. It was the place I always sent my stories first, even though John W. Campbell always rejected them without comment. (He was renowned for sending reams of comments on stories he rejected. Other people’s stories.)

  Ben Bova had recently taken over as editor, and to my astonishment and pleasure, he bought the story.

  “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand” won the Nebula (despite a review that said it was a bad story because it shouldn’t have been published in Analog) at the 1974 Nebula Awards Ceremony in LA, organized fantastically by Jerry Pournelle. Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, one of the guest speakers, handed me the award—a thrill equal to winning.

  I hadn’t planned to expand the story, but the characters didn’t like being left, figuratively, hanging by their thumbs. They protested. That’s another thing many writers will tell you, besides that they have no clue where they get their ideas: a writers’ characters will walk into the writer’s mind and start talking.

  When this happens, any smart writer won’t ask where the ideas came from—she’ll shut up and take the dictation on the story of her characters’ lives.

  The little boy was frightened. Gently, Snake touched his hot forehead. Behind her, three adults stood close together, watching, suspicious, afraid to show their concern with more than narrow lines around their eyes. They feared Snake as much as they feared their only child’s death. In the dimness of the tent, the flickering lamplights gave no reassurance.

  The child watched with eyes so dark the pupils were not visible, so dull that Snake herself feared for his life. She stroked his hair. It was long and very pale, a striking color against his dark skin, dry and irregular for several inches near the scalp. Had Snake been with these people months ago, she would have known the child was growing ill.

  “Bring my case, please,” Snake said.

  The child’s parents started at her soft voice. Perhaps they had expected the screech of a bright jay, or the hissing of a shining serpent. This was the first time Snake had spoken in their presence. She had only watched, when the three of them had come to observe her from a distance and whisper about her occupation and her youth; she had only listened, and then nodded, when finally they came to ask her help. Perhaps they had thought she was mute.

  The fair-haired younger man lifted her leather case from the felt floor. He held the satchel away from his body, leaning to hand it to her, breathing shallowly with nostrils flared against the faint smell of musk in the dry desert air. Snake had almost accustomed herself to the kind of uneasiness he showed; she had already seen it often.

  When Snake reached out, the young man jerked back and dropped the case. Snake lunged and barely caught it, set it gently down, and glanced at him with reproach. His husband and his wife came forward and touched him to ease his fear. “He was bitten once,” the dark and handsome woman said. “He almost died.” Her tone was not of apology, but of justification.

  “I’m sorry,” the younger man said. “It’s—” He gestured toward her; he was trembling, and trying visibly to control the reactions of his fear: Snake glanced down to her shoulder, where she had been unconsciously aware of the slight weight and movement. A tiny serpent, thin as the finger of a baby, slid himself around behind her neck to show his narrow head below her short black curls. He probed the air with his trident tongue, in a leisurely manner, out, up and down, in, to savor the taste of the smells.

  “It’s only Grass,” Snake said. “He cannot harm you.”

  If he were bigger, he might frighten; his color was pal
e green, but the scales around his mouth were red, as if he had just feasted as a mammal eats, by tearing. He was, in fact, much neater.

  The child whimpered. He cut off the sound of pain; perhaps he had been told that Snake, too, would be offended by crying. She only felt sorry that his people refused themselves such a simple way of easing fear. She turned from the adults, regretting their terror of her, but unwilling to spend the time it would take to convince them their reactions were unjustified. “It’s all right,” she said to the little boy. “Grass is smooth, and dry, and soft, and if I left him to guard you, even death could not reach your bedside.” Grass poured himself into her narrow, dirty hand, and she extended him toward the child. “Gently.” He reached out and touched the sleek scales with one fingertip. Snake could sense the effort of even such a simple motion, yet the boy almost smiled.

  “What are you called?”

  He looked quickly toward his parents, and finally they nodded. “Stavin,” he whispered. He had no strength or breath for speaking.

  “I am Snake, Stavin, and in a little while, in the morning, I must hurt you. You may feel a quick pain, and your body will ache for several days, but you will be better afterward.”

  He stared at her solemnly. Snake saw that though he understood and feared what she might do, he was less afraid than if she had lied to him. The pain must have increased greatly as his illness became more apparent, but it seemed that others had only reassured him, and hoped the disease would disappear or kill him quickly.

  Snake put Grass on the boy’s pillow and pulled her case nearer. The lock opened at her touch. The adults still could only fear her; they had had neither time nor reason to discover any trust. The wife was old enough that they might never have another child, and Snake could tell by their eyes, their covert touching, their concern, that they loved this one very much. They must, to come to Snake in this country.

  It was night, and cooling. Sluggish, Sand slid out of the case, moving his head, moving his tongue, smelling, tasting, detecting the warmth of bodies.

  “Is that—?” The older husband’s voice was low, and wise, but terrified, and Sand sensed the fear. He drew back into striking position, and sounded his rattle softly. Snake spoke to him and extended her arm. The pit viper relaxed and flowed around and around her slender wrist to form black and tan bracelets. “No,” she said. “Your child is too ill for Sand to help. I know it is hard, but please try to be calm. This is a fearful thing for you, but it is all I can do.”

  She had to annoy Mist to make her come out. Snake rapped on the bag, and finally poked her twice. Snake felt the vibration of sliding scales, and suddenly the albino cobra flung herself into the tent. She moved quickly, yet there seemed to be no end to her. She reared back and up. Her breath rushed out in a hiss. Her head rose well over a meter above the floor. She flared her wide hood. Behind her, the adults gasped, as if physically assaulted by the gaze of the tan spectacle design on the back of Mist’s hood. Snake ignored the people and spoke to the great cobra in a singsong voice. “Ali, thou. Furious creature. Lie down; ’tis time for thee to earn thy piglet. Speak to this child, and touch him. He is called Stavin.” Slowly, Mist relaxed her hood, and allowed Snake to touch her. Snake grasped her firmly behind the head, and held her so she looked at Stavin. The cobra’s silver eyes picked up the yellow of the lamplight. “Stavin,” Snake said, “Mist will only meet you now. I promise that this time she will touch you gently.”

  Still, Stavin shivered when Mist touched his thin chest. Snake did not release the serpent’s head, but allowed her body to slide against the boy’s. The cobra was four times longer than Stavin was tall. She curved herself in stark white loops across Stavin’s swollen abdomen, extending herself, forcing her head toward the boy’s face, straining against Snake’s hands. Mist met Stavin’s frightened stare with the gaze of lidless eyes. Snake allowed her a little closer. Mist flicked out her tongue to taste the child.

  The younger husband made a small, cut-off, frightened sound. Stavin flinched at it, and Mist drew back, opening her mouth, exposing her fangs, audibly; thrusting her breath through her throat: Snake sat back on her heels, letting out her own breath. Sometimes, in other places, the kinfolk could stay while she worked. “You must leave,” she said gently. “It’s dangerous to frighten Mist.”

  “I won’t—”

  “I’m sorry. You must wait outside.”

  Perhaps the younger husband, perhaps even the wife, would have made the indefensible objections and asked the answerable questions, but the older man turned them and took their hands and led them away.

  “I need a small animal,” Snake said as the man lifted the tent flap. “It must have fur, and it must be alive.”

  “One will be found,” he said, and the three parents went into the glowing night. Snake could hear their footsteps in the sand outside.

  Snake supported Mist in her lap, and soothed her. The cobra wrapped herself around Snake’s narrow waist, taking in her warmth. Hunger made her even more nervous than usual, and she was hungry, as was Snake. Coming across the black sand desert, they had found sufficient water, but Snake’s traps were unsuccessful. The season was summer, the weather was hot, and many of the furry tidbits Sand and Mist preferred were estivating. When the serpents missed their regular meal, Snake began a fast as well.

  She saw with regret that Stavin was more frightened now. “I am sorry to send your parents away,” she said. “They can come back soon.”

  His eyes glistened, but he held back the tears. “They said to do what you told me.”

  “I would have you cry, if you are able,” Snake said. “It isn’t such a terrible thing.” But Stavin seemed not to understand, and Snake did not press him; she knew that his people taught themselves to resist a difficult land by refusing to cry, refusing to mourn, refusing to laugh. They denied themselves grief, and allowed themselves little joy, but they survived.

  Mist had calmed to sullenness. Snake unwrapped her from her waist and placed her on the pallet next to Stavin. As the cobra moved, Snake guided her head, feeling the tension of the striking muscles. “She will touch you with her tongue,” she told Stavin. “It might tickle, but it will not hurt. She smells with it, as you do with your nose.”

  “With her tongue?”

  Snake nodded, smiling, and Mist flicked out her tongue to caress Stavin’s cheek. Stavin did not flinch; he watched, his child’s delight in knowledge briefly overcoming pain. He lay perfectly still as Mist’s long tongue brushed his cheeks, his eyes, his mouth. “She tastes the sickness,” Snake said. Mist stopped fighting the restraint of her grasp, and drew back her head.

  Snake sat on her heels and released the cobra, who spiraled up her arm and laid herself across her shoulders.

  “Go to sleep, Stavin,” Snake said. “Try to trust me, and try not to fear the morning.”

  Stavin gazed at her for a few seconds, searching for e truth in Snake’s pale eyes: “Will Grass watch?”

  The question startled her, or, rather, the acceptance behind the question. She brushed his hair from his, forehead and smiled a smile that was tears just beneath the surface. “Of course.” She picked Grass up. “Thou wilt watch this child, and guard him.” The snake lay quiet in her hand, and his eyes glittered black. She laid him gently on Stavin’s pillow.

  “Now sleep.”

  Stavin closed his eyes, and the life seemed to flow out of him. The alteration was so great that Snake reached out to touch him, then saw that he was breathing, slowly, shallowly. She tucked a blanket around him and stood up. The abrupt change in position dizzied her; she staggered and caught herself. Across her shoulders, Mist tensed.

  Snake’s eyes stung and her vision was over sharp, fever-clear. The sound she imagined she heard swooped in closer. She steadied herself against hunger and exhaustion, bent slowly, and picked up the leather case. Mist touched her cheek with the tip of her tongue.

  She pushed aside the tent flap and felt relief that it was still night. She could stand the
heat, but the brightness of the sun curled through her, burning. The moon must be full; though the clouds obscured everything they diffused the light so the sky appeared gray from horizon to horizon. Beyond the tents, groups of formless shadows projected from the ground. Here, near the edge of the desert, enough water existed so clumps and patches of bush grew, providing shelter and sustenance for all manner of creatures. The black sand, which sparkled and blinded in the, sunlight, at night was like a layer of soft soot. Snake stepped out of the tent, and the illusion of softness disappeared; her boots slid crunching into the sharp hard grains.

  Stavin’s family waited, sitting close together between the dark tents that clustered in a patch of sand from which the bushes had been ripped and burned. They looked at her silently, hoping with their eyes, showing no expression in their faces. A woman somewhat younger than Stavin’s mother sat with them. She was dressed, as they were, in a long loose robe, but she wore the only adornment Snake had seen among these people: a leader’s circle, hanging around her neck on a leather thong. She and the older husband were marked close kin by their similarities: sharp-cut planes of face, high cheekbones, his hair white and hers graying early from deep black, their eyes the dark brown best suited for survival in the sun. On the ground by their feet a small black animal jerked sporadically against a net, and infrequently gave a shrill weak cry.

  “Stavin is asleep,” Snake said. “Do not disturb him, but go to him if he wakes.”

  The wife and young husband rose and went inside, but the older man stopped before her. “Can you help him?”

  “I hope we may. The tumor is advanced, but it seems solid.” Her own voice sounded removed, slightly hollow, as if she were lying. “Mist will be ready in the morning.” She still felt the need to give him reassurance, but she could think of none.

  “My sister wished to speak with you,” he said, and left them alone, without introduction, without elevating himself by saying that the tall woman was the leader of this group. Snake glanced back, but the tent flap fell shut. She was feeling her exhaustion more deeply, and across her shoulders Mist was, for the first time, a weight she thought heavy.