Dreamsnake

by Vonda McIntyre

  “But we didn’t know about her back. We thought she’d hit her head. We could have twisted her body—”

  Snake put her hand on Alex’s forearm. “It was an injury of violence,” she said. “Any healer could see it. The damage happened when she fell. Believe me. You and Merideth couldn’t have done any of that to her.”

  The hard muscles in his forearm relaxed. Snake took her hand away, relieved. Alex’s stocky body held so much strength, and he had been controlling himself so tightly, that Snake feared he might turn his own force unwittingly back on himself. He was more important to this partnership than he appeared, perhaps even more important than he himself knew. Alex was the practical one, the one who kept the camp running smoothly, who dealt with the buyers of Merideth’s work and balanced out the romanticism of Merideth the artist and Jesse the adventurer. Snake hoped the truth she had told him would let him ease his guilt and tension. For now, though, she could do no more for him.

  As twilight approached, Snake stroked Sand’s smooth patterned scales. She no longer wondered if the diamondback enjoyed being stroked, or even if a creature as small-brained as Sand could feel enjoyment at all. The cool sensation beneath her fingers gave her pleasure, and Sand lay in a quiet coil, now and then flicking out his tongue. His color was bright and clear; he had outgrown his old skin and shed it only recently. “I let you eat too much,” Snake said fondly. “You lazy creature.”

  Snake drew her knees up under her chin. Against the black rocks, the rattlesnake’s patterns were almost as conspicuous as Mist’s albino scales. Neither serpents nor humans nor anything else left alive on Earth had yet adapted to their world as it existed now.

  Mist was out of sight, but Snake was not worried. Both serpents were imprinted on her and would stay near and even follow her. Neither had much aptitude for learning beyond the imprinting, which the healers had bred into them, but Mist and Sand would return when they felt the vibration of her hand slapping the ground.

  Snake relaxed against a boulder, cushioned by the desert robe Arevin’s people had given her. She wondered what Arevin was doing, where he was. His people were nomads, herders of huge musk-oxen whose undercoat gave fine, silky wool. To meet the clan again she would have to search for them. She did not know if that would ever be possible, though she very much wanted to see Arevin once more.

  Seeing his people would always remind her of Grass’s death, if she were ever able to forget it. Her mistakes and misjudgments of them were the reason Grass was gone. She had expected them to accept her word despite their fear, and without meaning to they had shown her how arrogant her assumptions were.

  She shook off her depression. Now she had a chance to redeem herself. If she really could go with Jesse, find out where the dreamsnakes came from and capture new ones—if she could even discover why they would not breed on Earth—she could return in triumph instead of in disgrace, succeeding where her teachers and generations of healers had failed.

  It was time to return to the camp. She climbed the low rise of jumbled rock that covered the mouth of the canyon, looking for Mist. The cobra was coiled on a high chunk of basalt.

  At the top of the slope Snake reached for Mist, picked her up and stroked her narrow head. She was not so formidable unexcited, hood folded, narrow-headed as any venomless serpent. She did not need a thick-jowled head, heavy with poison. Her venom was powerful enough to kill in delicate doses.

  As Snake turned, the brilliant sunset drew her gaze. The sun was an orange blur on the horizon, radiating streaks of purple and vermilion through the gray clouds.

  And then Snake saw the craters, stretching away across the desert below her. The Earth was covered with great circular basins. Some, lying in the path of the lava flow, had caught and broken its smooth frozen billows. Others were clearer, great holes gouged in the earth, still distinct after so many years of driving sands. The craters were so large, spread over such a distance, that they could have only one source. Nuclear explosions had blasted them. The war itself was long over, almost forgotten, for it had destroyed everyone who knew or cared about the reasons it had happened.

  Snake gazed over the ravaged land, glad to be no nearer. In places like this the effects of the war had lingered visibly and invisibly to Snake’s time; they would persist for centuries beyond her life. The canyon in which she and the partners were camped was probably not completely safe itself, but they had not been here long enough to be in serious danger.

  Something unusual lay out in the rubble, in line with the brilliant setting sun so it was difficult to see. Snake squinted at it. She felt uneasy, as if she were spying on something she had no business knowing about.

  The body of a horse, decaying in the heat, lay crumpled at the edge of a crater. The dead animal’s rigid legs poked grotesquely into the air, forced up by its swollen belly. Clasping the animal’s head, a gold bridle gleamed scarlet and orange in the sunset.

  Snake released her breath in a sound half sigh, half moan.

  She ran back to the serpent case and urged Mist inside, picked Sand up and started back toward the camp, cursing when the rattler in his mindlessly obstinate way tried to twine himself around her arm. She stopped and held him so he could slide into his compartment, and started running again while she was still fastening the catch. The case banged against her leg.

  Panting, she reached the tent and ducked inside. Merideth and Alex were asleep. Snake knelt beside Jesse and carefully pulled back the sheet.

  Little more than an hour had passed since Snake had examined Jesse last. The bruises down her side had darkened and deepened, and her body was unhealthily flushed. Snake felt her forehead. It was burning hot and paper dry. Jesse did not respond to her touch. When Snake took her hand away the smooth skin looked darker. Within minutes, as Snake watched horrified, another bruise begin to form as the capillaries ruptured, their walls so damaged by radiation that mild pressure completed their destruction. The bandage on Jesse’s thigh suddenly reddened in the center with a stain of blood. Snake clenched her fists. She was shaking, deep inside, as if from penetrating cold. She called…

  “Merideth!”

  In a moment Merideth was awake, yawning and mumbling sleepily. “What’s wrong?”

  “How long did it take you to find Jesse? Did she fall in the craters?”

  “Yes, she was prospecting there. That’s why we come—other artisans can’t match our work because of what Jesse finds here. But this time a rim gave way. We found her in the evening.”

  A whole day, Snake thought. She must have been in one of the primary craters.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Those craters are dangerous—”

  “Do you believe all those old legends, healer? We’ve been coming here for a decade and nothing ever happened to us.”

  Now was not the time for angry retorts. Snake glanced at Jesse again and realized that her own ignorance and the partnership’s contempt for the danger of the old world’s relics had unwittingly granted Jesse some mercy. Snake had treatments for radiation poisoning, but there was no treatment for anything this severe. Whatever she could have tried would only prolong Jesse’s death.

  “What’s the matter?” For the first time Merideth’s voice showed fear.

  “She has radiation poisoning.”

  “Poisoning? How? She’s eaten and drunk nothing we haven’t tasted.”

  “It’s from the crater. The ground is poisoned. The legends are true.”

  Beneath deep tan, Merideth was pale. “Then do something, help her!”

  “There’s nothing I can do.”

  “You couldn’t help her injury, you can’t help her sickness—”

  They stared at each other, both of them hurt and angry. Merideth’s gaze dropped first. “I’m sorry… I had no right…”

  “I wish to the gods I were omnipotent, Merideth, but I’m not.”

  Their conversation woke Alex, who rose and came toward them, stretching and s
cratching. “It’s time to—” He glanced back and forth from Snake to Merideth, then looked beyond to Jesse. “Oh, gods…”

  The new mark on her forehead, where Snake had touched her, was slowly oozing blood.

  Alex flung himself down beside her, reaching for her, but Snake held him back. He tried to push her away.

  “Alex, I barely touched her. You can’t help her like that.” He looked at her blankly. “Then how?”

  Snake shook her head.

  Tears welling up, Alex pulled away from her. “It isn’t fair!” He ran out of the tent. Merideth started after him, hesitated at the entrance, and turned back. “He can’t understand…he’s so young…”

  “He understands,” Snake said. She blotted Jesse’s forehead, trying not to rub or put pressure on her skin. “And he’s right, it isn’t fair. Who ever said anything was fair?” She cut off the words to spare Merideth her own bitterness over Jesse’s lost chances, snatched away by fate and ignorance and the remnants of another generation’s insanity.

  “Merry…” Jesse groped in the air with a trembling hand.

  “I’m here.” Merideth reached out but stopped, afraid to touch her.

  “What’s the matter? Why do I…” She blinked slowly. Her eyes were bloodshot.

  “Gently,” Snake whispered. Merideth enfolded Jesse’s fingers with hands soft as bird wings.

  “Is it time to go?” The eagerness was tinged with terror, unwillingness to realize something was wrong.

  “No, love.”

  “It’s so hot…” She started to raise her head, shifting her weight. She froze with a gasp of pain. Information entered Snake’s mind without any conscious effort, a cold inhuman analysis she was trained for: Bleeding into the joints. Internal bleeding. And in her brain?

  “It never hurt like this.” She glanced at Snake without moving her head. “It’s something else, something worse.”

  “Jesse, I—” Snake was first aware of her tears by the taste of salt on her lips, and the grit from the desert’s dust. She choked on words. Alex crept back into the tent. Jesse tried to speak again, but could only gasp.

  Merideth grabbed Snake’s arm. She could feel the fingernails cutting her skin. “She’s dying.”

  Snake nodded.

  “Healers know how to help—how to—”

  “Merideth, no,” Jesse whispered.

  “—how to take away the pain.”

  “She can’t…”

  “One of my serpents was killed,” Snake said, more loudly than she had intended, belligerent with grief and anger.

  Merideth did not make a second outburst, but Snake could feel the unspoken accusation: You couldn’t help her live, and now you can’t help her die. This time it was Snake’s gaze that fell. She deserved the condemnation. Merideth let her go and turned back to Jesse, looming over her like a tall demon waiting to fight beasts or shadows.

  Jesse reached out to touch Merideth but drew her hand sharply back. She stared at the soft center of her palm, between the calluses of her work. A bruise was forming. “Why?”

  “The last war,” Snake said. “In the craters—” Her voice broke.

  “So it’s true,” Jesse said. “My family believes the land outside kills, but I thought they lied.” Her eyes went out of focus; she blinked, looked toward Snake but did not seem to see her, blinked again. “They lied about so many other things. Lies for making children obedient…”

  Silent again, her eyes closed, Jesse slowly went limp, one muscle at a time as if even relaxation was an agony she could not tolerate all at once. She was still conscious but did not respond, with word or smile or glance, as Merideth stroked her bright hair and moved as close as was possible without touching her. Her skin was ashen around the livid bruises.

  Suddenly she screamed. She clamped her hands to her temples, pressing, digging her nails into her scalp. Snake grabbed for her hands to pull them away. “No,” Jesse groaned, “oh, no, leave me alone—Merry, it hurts!” Weak a few moments before, Jesse struggled with fever-fired strength. Snake could do nothing but try to restrain her gently, but the inner diagnostic voice returned: Aneurysm. In Jesse’s brain a radiation-weakened vessel was slowly exploding. Snake’s next thought was equally unbidden and even more powerful: Pray it bursts soon and hard, and kills her cleanly.

  At the same time Snake realized Alex was no longer beside her trying to help with Jesse, but had crossed to the other side of the tent, she heard Sand rattle. She turned instinctively, launching herself toward Alex. Her shoulder rammed his stomach and he dropped the satchel as Sand struck from within. Alex crashed to the ground as Snake felt a sharp pain in her leg and drew back her fist to strike him, but checked herself.

  She fell to one knee.

  Sand coiled on the ground, rattling his tail softly, prepared to strike again. Snake’s heart raced. She could feel the pulse throbbing in her thigh. Her femoral artery was less than a handsbreadth from the puncture where Sand had sunk his fangs into muscle.

  “You fool! Are you trying to kill yourself?” Her leg throbbed a few more times, then her immunities neutralized the venom. She was glad Sand had missed the artery. Even she could be made briefly ill by a bite like that, and she had no time for illness. The pain faded to a dull, ebbing ache.

  “How can you let her die in such pain?”

  “All you’d give her is more pain with Sand.” Disguising her anger, she turned calmly to the diamondback, picked him up, and let him flow back into the case. “There’s no quick death with rattlers.” That was not quite true, but Snake was still angry enough to frighten him. “If anyone dies of it they die from infection. Gangrene.”

  Alex paled but held his ground, glowering.

  Merideth called him. Alex glanced at his partners, then stared at Snake again for a long challenging moment. “What about the other one?” He turned his back on her and went to Jesse’s side.

  Holding the serpent-case, Snake fingered the catch on Mist’s compartment. She shook her head, pushing away the image of Jesse dying from Mist’s poison. Cobra venom would kill quickly, not pleasantly but quickly. What was the difference between disguising pain with dreams and ending it with death? Snake had never deliberately caused the death of another human being, in anger or in mercy. She did not know if she could now. Or if she should. She could not tell if the reluctance she felt came from her training or from some deeper, more fundamental knowledge that to kill Jesse would be wrong.

  She could hear the partners talking softly together, voices but not words distinguishable: Merideth clear, musical, mid-range; Alex deep and rumbling; Jesse breathless and hesitant. Every few minutes they all fell silent as Jesse fought another wave of pain. Jesse’s next hours or days, the last of her life, would strip away her strength and spirit.

  Snake opened the case and let Mist slide out and coil around her arm, up and over her shoulder. She held the cobra gently behind the head so she could not strike, and crossed the tent.

  They all looked up at her, startled out of a retreat into their self-sufficient partnership. Merideth, in particular, seemed for a moment not even to recognize her. Alex looked from Snake to the cobra and back again, with a strange expression of resigned, triumphant grief. Mist flicked out her tongue to catch their smells, her unblinking eyes like silver mirrors in the growing darkness. Jesse peered at her, squinting, blinking. She reached up to rub her eyes but stopped, remembering, a tremor in her hand. “Healer? Come closer, I can’t see properly.”

  Snake knelt down between Merideth and Alex. For the third time she did not know what to say to Jesse. It was as if she, not Jesse, were becoming blind, blood seeping across her retinas and squeezing the nerves, sight blurring slowly to scarlet and black. Snake blinked rapidly and her vision cleared.

  “Jesse, I can’t do anything about the pain.” Mist moved smoothly beneath her hand. “All I can offer…”

  “Tell her!” Alex growled. He stared as if petrified at Mist’s eyes.

  “Do you think this is easy?” Sn
ake snapped. But Alex did not look up.

  “Jesse,” Snake said, “Mist’s natural venom can kill. If you want me to—”

  “What are you saying?” Merideth cried.

  Alex broke his fascinated stare. “Merideth, be quiet, how can you stand—”

  “Both of you be quiet,” Snake said. “The decision’s up to neither of you, it’s Jesse’s alone.”

  Alex slumped back on his heels; Merideth sat rigid, glaring. Jesse said nothing for a long time. Mist tried to crawl from Snake’s arm and Snake restrained her.

  “The pain won’t stop.”

  “No,” Snake said. “I’m sorry.”

  “When will I die?”

  “The pain in your head is from pressure. It could kill you…any time.” Merideth hunched down, face in hands, but Snake had no way of being gentler. “You have a few days, at the most, from the poisoning.” Jesse flinched when she said that.

  “I don’t wish for days anymore,” she said softly.

  Tears streamed between Merideth’s fingers.

  “Dear Merry, Alex knows,” Jesse said. “Please try to understand. It’s time for me to let you go.” Jesse looked toward Snake with sightless eyes. “Give us a little while alone, and then I’ll be grateful for your gift.”

  Snake stood and walked out of the tent. Her knees shook, while her neck and shoulders ached with tension. She sat down on the hard gritty sand, wishing the night were over.

  She looked up at the sky, a thin strip edged by the walls of the canyon. The clouds seemed peculiarly thick and opaque tonight, for though the Moon had not yet risen high enough to see, some of its light should have been diffracted into sky-glow. Suddenly she realized the clouds were not unusually thick but very thin and mobile, too thin to spread light. They moved in a wind that blew only high above the ground. As she watched, a bank of dark cloud split and parted, and Snake quite clearly saw the sky, black and deep and shimmering with multicolored points of light. Snake stared at them, hoping the clouds would not come together again, wishing someone else were near to share the stars with her. Planets circled some of those stars, and people lived on them, people who might have helped Jesse if they had even known she existed. Snake wondered if their plan had had any chance of success at all, or if Jesse had accepted it because on a level deeper than shock and resignation her grip on life had been too strong to let go.