Dreamsnake

“No,” Snake said. “You look like kin.”

“She’s my older sister,” he said. “And now I suppose she wants to come back and be the eldest again, while I’m to go back to being nothing but a younger?”

The bitterness of his voice was like a betrayal; Snake felt it like a shock. The news of Jesse’s death would not bring sorrow to her brother, only joy.

“She’s coming back, isn’t she?” he said. “She knows the council would put her back at the head of our family. Damn her! I might as well not have existed for the last twenty years.”

Snake listened to him, her throat tightening with grief. Despite the brother’s resentment, if Snake had been able to keep Jesse alive, her people would have taken her back, welcomed her back: if they could, they would have healed her.

Snake spoke with some difficulty. “This council– perhaps I should give the message to them.” She wanted to speak to someone who cared, someone who had loved Jesse, not to someone who would laugh and thank her for her failure.

“This is family business, not a matter for the council. You should give Jesse’s message to me.”

“I would prefer speaking to you face to face.”

“I’m sure you would,” he said. “But that’s impossible. My cousins have a policy against letting in outsiders—”

“Surely, in this case—”

“—and besides, I couldn’t even if I wanted to. The gate’s locked till spring.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true.”

“Jesse would have warned me.”

He snorted. “She never believed it. She left when she was a child, and children never really believe. They play at staying out till the last minute, pretending they might get locked out. So sometimes we lose one who tests the rules too far.”

“She stopped believing almost everything you say.” Anger tightened Snake’s voice.

Jesse’s brother glanced away, intently watching something else for a moment. He looked at Snake again. “Well, I hope you believe what I tell you now. A storm’s gathering, so I suggest you give me the message and leave yourself time to find shelter.”

Even if he was lying to her, he was not going to let her inside. Snake no longer even hoped for that.

“Her message is this,” Snake said. “She was happy out here. She wants you to stop lying to your children about what it’s like outside your city.”

Jesse’s brother stared at Snake, waiting, then suddenly smiled and laughed once, quickly and sharply. “That’s all? You mean she isn’t coming back?”

“She cannot come back,” Snake said. “She’s dead.”

A strange and eerie mixture of relief and sorrow passed over the face that was so like Jesse’s.

“Dead?” he said softly.

“I could not save her. She broke her back—”

I never wished her dead.“ He drew in a long breath, then let it out slowly. ”Broke her back… a quick death, then. Better than some.“

“She did not die when she broke her back. Her partners and I were going to bring her home, because you could heal her.”

“Perhaps we could have,” he said. “How did she die?”

“She prospected in the war craters. She couldn’t believe the truth that they are dangerous, because you told her so many lies. She died of radiation poisoning.”

He flinched.

“I was with her,” Snake said. “I did what I could, but I have no dreamsnake. I could not help her die.”

He seemed to be staring at Snake, through her.

“We are in your debt, healer,” he said. “For service to a family member, for bringing us news of her death.” He spoke in a distressed, distracted tone, then suddenly looked up, glaring at her. “I don’t like my family to be in debt. There’s a payment slot at the base of the screen. The money—”

“I want no money,” Snake said.

“I can’t let you in!” he cried.

“I accept that.”

“Then what do you want?” He shook his head quickly. “Of course. Dreamsnakes. Why won’t you believe we have none? I can’t discharge our debt with dreamsnakes—and I’m not willing to exchange my debt to you for a debt to the offworlders. The offworlders—” He stopped; he seemed upset.

“If the offworlders can help me, let me speak to them.”

“Even if I could, they’d refuse you.”

“If they’re human, they’ll listen to me.”

“There’s… some question about their humanity,” Jesse’s brother said. “Who can tell, without tests? You don’t understand, healer. You’ve never met them. They’re dangerous and unpredictable.”

“Let me try.” Snake held out her hands, palms up, a quick, beseeching gesture, trying to make him understand her. “Other people die as Jesse died, in agony, because there aren’t enough healers. There aren’t enough dreamsnakes. I want to talk to the offworlders.”

“Let me pay you now, healer,” Jesse’s brother said sadly, and Snake might as well have been back at Mountainside. “The power in Center is precariously balanced. The council would never permit an outsider to deal with the offworlders. The tensions are too great, and we won’t chance altering them. I’m sorry my sister died in pain, but what you ask would risk too many more lives.”

“How can that be true?” Snake said. “A simple meeting, a single question—”