Dreamsnake by Vonda D. McIntyre Page B

they’ll be lucky not to get kicked apart, the way most
of them break horses.” He slapped the placid gray’s neck fondly and led both
horses back to the corral.
    “I wish she’d been riding one of them before,” Snake said to Merideth.
    “They weren’t like that when she got them. She buys crazy horses. She can’t
bear to see them mistreated. The colt was one of her strays—she had him calmed
but he hadn’t found his balance yet.“
    They started back toward the tent to get out of the sun as it crept across
the afternoon. The tent sagged on one side where two poles had been removed for
the stretcher. Merideth yawned widely. “Best to sleep while we have the chance.
We can’t afford to still be on the lava when the sun comes up.”
    But Snake was filled with a restless uncertain energy; she sat in the tent,
grateful for the shade but wide-awake, wondering how the whole mad plan could
work. She reached for the leather case to check on her serpents, but Jesse woke
as she opened Sand’s compartment. She closed the catch again and moved closer to
the pallet. Jesse looked up at her.
    “Jesse … about what I said … ”
She wanted to explain but could not think how to start.
    “What upset you so? Am I the first you’ve helped who might have died?”
    “No. I’ve seen people die. I’ve helped them die.”
    “Everything was so hopeless just a little while ago,” Jesse said. “A pleasant
end would have been easy. You must always have to guard against … the simplicity of death.”
    “Death can be a gift,” Snake said. “But in one way or another it always means
failure. That’s the guard against it. It’s enough.”
    A faint breeze whispered through the heat, making Snake feel almost cool.
    “What’s wrong, healer?”
    “I was afraid,” Snake said. “I was afraid you might be dying. If you were,
you had the right to ask my help. I have the obligation to give it. But I
can’t.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “When my training ended my teachers gave me my own serpents. Two of them can
be drugged for medicines. The third was the dream-giver. He was killed.”
    Jesse reached out instinctively and took Snake’s hand, a reaction to her
sadness. Snake accepted Jesse’s quiet sympathy gratefully, taking comfort in the
sturdy touch.
    “You’re crippled too,” Jesse said abruptly. “As crippled in your work as I.”
    Jesse’s generosity in comparing them that way embarrassed Snake. Jesse was in
pain, helpless, her only chance of recovery so small that Snake stood in awe of
her spirits and her renewed grasp on life. “Thank you for saying that.”
    “So I’m going back to my family to ask for help— and you were going back to
yours?”
    “Yes.”
    “They’ll give you another,” Jesse said with certainty.
    “I hope so.”
    “Is there any question?”
    “Dreamsnakes don’t breed well,” Snake said. “We don’t know enough about them.
Every few years a few new ones are born, or one of us manages to clone some,
but—” Snake shrugged.
    “Catch one!”
    The suggestion had never occurred to Snake because she knew it was
impossible. She had never considered any possibility other than returning to the
healers’ station and asking her teachers to pardon her. She smiled sadly. “My
reach isn’t that long. They don’t come from here.”
    “Where?”
    Snake shrugged again. “Some other world … ” Her
voice trailed off as she realized what she was saying.
    “Then you’ll come with me beyond the city’s gates,” Jesse said. “When I go to
my family, they’ll introduce you to the offworlders.”
    “Jesse, my people have been asking Center’s help for decades. They won’t even
speak to us.”
    “But now one of the city’s families is obligated to you. Whether my people
will take me back I don’t know. But they’ll be in debt to you for helping me,
nevertheless.”
    Snake listened in silence, intrigued by the possibilities lying in Jesse’s