Read Online Dreamsnake by Vonda D. McIntyre - Free Book Online

words.
    “Healer, believe me,” Jesse said. “We can help each other. If they accept me,
they’ll accept my friends as well. If not, they’ll still have to discharge their
debt to you. Either one of us can present both our requests.”
    Snake was a proud woman, proud of her training, her competence, her name. The
prospect of atoning for Grass’s death in some other way than begging forgiveness
fascinated her. Once every decade an elder healer would make the long trip to
the city, seeking to renew the breeding stock of dreamsnakes. They had always
been refused. If Snake could succeed …
    “Can this work?”
    “My family will help us,” Jesse said. “Whether they can make the offworlders
help us too, I don’t know.”
     
    During the hot afternoon, all Snake and the partners could do was wait. Snake
decided to let Mist and Sand out of the satchel for a while before the long trip
began. As she left the tent, she stopped beside Jesse. The handsome woman was
sleeping peacefully, but her face was flushed. Snake touched her forehead.
Perhaps Jesse had a slight fever; perhaps it was just the heat of the day. Snake
still thought Jesse had avoided serious internal injuries, but it was possible
that she was bleeding, even that she was developing peritonitis. That was
something Snake could cure. She decided not to disturb Jesse for the moment, but
to wait and see if the fever rose.
    Walking out of camp to find a sheltered place where her serpents would
frighten no one, Snake passed Alex, staring morosely into space. She hesitated,
and he glanced up, his expression troubled. Snake sat down beside him without
speaking. He turned toward her, staring at her with his penetrating gaze: the
goodnaturedness had vanished from his face in his torment, leaving him ugly, and
sinister as well.
    “We crippled her, didn’t we? Merideth and me.”
    “Crippled her? No, of course not.”
    “We shouldn’t have moved her. I should have thought of that. We should have
moved the camp to her. Maybe the nerves weren’t broken when we found her.”
    “They were broken.”
    “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 thee eat too much,” Snake said fondly.
“Thou 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