Free Dreamsnake by Vonda D. McIntyre Page A

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