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 part sigh, part 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, while Snake watched, horrified, another bruise began 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.
“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. That’s why we come here—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 have prolonged 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
scratching. “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, with 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. 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 made aware of her tears by the taste of salt on
her lips, mixed with 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: aneurism.
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 that 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. 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 became a dull, ebbing ache.
“How can you let her die in such pain?” Alex asked.
“All you’d give her with Sand is more pain.” Disguising her anger, she turned
calmly to the diamondback, picked him up, and let him slide 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 serpent?” He turned his
back on her and went to Jesse’s side.
Holding the 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, midrange; 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?” Snake 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,” Jesse said.
“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. “Let us
have a little while alone, and then I’ll be grateful for your gift.”
Snake stood and walked out of the tent. Her knees shook and 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 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.