Dreamsnake (19 page)

If the mayor could risk accepting her ultimatum, Snake could not risk
bringing it into force. She could not chance leaving Melissa with Ras another
day, another hour; Snake had put her in too much danger. What was more, she had
shown her dislike of the stablemaster, so the mayor might not believe what she
said about him. Even if Melissa accused him, there was no proof. Snake searched
desperately for another way to win Melissa’s freedom; she hoped she had not
already ruined any chance of gaining it directly.

She spoke as calmly as she could. “I withdraw my request.”

Melissa caught her breath but did not look up again. The mayor’s expression
turned to one of relief, and Ras sat back in his chair.

“On one condition,” Snake said. She paused to choose her words well, to say
only what could be proven. “On one condition. When Gabriel leaves, he’s going
north. Let Melissa go with him, as far as Middlepath.” Snake said nothing about
Gabriel’s plans; they were his business and no one else’s. “A fine women’s
teacher lives there, and she wouldn’t turn down anyone who needed her guidance.”

A small damp patch widened on the front of Melissa’s shirt, as tears fell
silently on the rough material. Snake hurried on.

“Let Melissa go with Gabriel. Her training might take longer than usual
because she’s so old to start. But it’s for her health and her safety. Even if
Ras loves—” she almost choked on the word—“loves her too much to give her up to
the healers, he won’t keep her from this.”

Ras’s ruddy complexion paled.

“Middlepath?” The mayor scowled. “We have perfectly good teachers here. Why
does she need to go to Middlepath?”

“I know you value beauty,” Snake said, “but I think you also value
self-control. Let Melissa learn the skills, even if she has to go elsewhere to
find a teacher.“

“Do you mean to tell me this child has never been to one?”

“Of course she has!” Ras cried. “It’s a trick to get the girl out of our
protection! You think you can come to a place and change everybody around to
suit yourself!” Ras yelled at Snake. “Now you think people will believe anything
you and that ungrateful little brat can make up about me. Everybody else is
afraid of you and your slimy reptiles, but I’m not. Set one on me, go ahead, and
I’ll mash it flat!” He stopped abruptly and glanced right and left as if he had
forgotten where he was. He had no way to make a dramatic exit.

“You needn’t guard yourself against serpents,” Snake said.

Ignoring him, ignoring Snake, the mayor leaned toward Melissa. “Child, have
you been to a women’s teacher?”

Melissa hesitated, but finally she answered. “I don’t know what that is.”

“No one would accept her,” Ras said.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Our teachers don’t refuse people. Did you take her to
one or not?”

Ras stared at his knees and said nothing more.

“It’s easy enough to check.”

“No, sir.”

“No!
No?”
The mayor flung off the bedclothes and got up, stumbling
but catching himself. He stood over Ras, a big man confronting another big man,
two huge handsome creatures facing each other, one livid, one pale before the
other’s rage.

“Why not?”

“She doesn’t need a teacher.”

“How dare you do such a thing!” The mayor leaned forward until Ras was
pressed back in the chair away from him. “How dare you endanger her! How dare
you condemn her to ignorance and discomfort!”

“She isn’t in danger! She doesn’t need to protect herself—who would ever
touch her?”

“You touch me!” Melissa ran to Snake and flung herself against her. Snake
hugged the child close.

“You—” The mayor straightened and stepped back. Brian, appearing silently,
supported him before his leg failed him. “What does she mean, Ras? Why is she so
frightened?”

Ras shook his head.

“Make him say it!” Melissa cried, facing them squarely. “Make him!”

The mayor limped to her and stooped down awkwardly. He looked Melissa
directly in the face. Neither he nor she flinched.

“I know you’re frightened of him, Melissa. Why is he so frightened of you?”

“Because Mistress Snake believes me.”

The mayor drew in a long breath. “Did you want him?”

“No,” she whispered.

“Ungrateful little brat!” Ras yelled. “Spiteful ugly thing! Who else but me
would ever touch her?”

The mayor ignored Ras and took Melissa’s hand in both his.

“The healer’s your guardian from now on. You’re free to go with her.”

“Thank you. Thank you, sir.”

The mayor lurched back to his feet. “Brian, find me her guardianship papers
in the city records—Sit down, Ras—And Brian, I’ll want a messenger to ride into
town. To the menders.”

“You slaver,” Ras growled. “So this is how you steal children. People will—”

“Shut up, Ras.” The mayor sounded exhausted far beyond his brief exertion,
and he was pale. “I can’t exile you. I have a responsibility to protect other
people. Other children. Your troubles are my troubles now, and they must be
resolved. Will you talk to the menders?”

“I don’t need the menders.”

“Will you go voluntarily or would you prefer a trial?”

Ras lowered himself slowly back into the chair, and finally nodded.
“Voluntarily,” he said.

Snake stood up, her arm around Melissa’s shoulders, Melissa with an arm
around her waist and her head turned slightly so the scar was almost concealed.
Together they walked away.

“Thank you, healer,” the mayor said.

“Good-bye,” Snake said, and shut the door.

She and Melissa walked through the echoing hallway to the second tower.

“I was so scared,” Melissa said.

“So was I. For a little while I thought I’d have to steal you.”

Melissa looked up. “Would you really do that?”

“Yes.”

Melissa was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Sorry! What for?”

“I should have trusted you. I didn’t. But I will from now on. I won’t be
scared any more.”

“You had a right to be scared, Melissa.”

“I’m not now. I won’t be any more. Where are we going?” For the first time
since Melissa had offered to ride Squirrel, her voice held self-confidence and
enthusiasm with no undertone of dread.

“Well,” Snake said, “I think you should go on up north to the healers’
station. Home.”

“What about you?”

“I have one more thing I have to do before I can go home. Don’t worry, you
can go almost halfway with Gabriel. I’ll write a letter for you to take, and
you’ll have Squirrel. They’ll know I sent you.”

“I’d rather go with you.”

Realizing how shaken Melissa was, Snake stopped. “I’d rather have you come
too, please believe me. But I have to go to Center and it might not be safe.”

“I’m not afraid of any crazy. Besides, if I’m along we can keep watch.”

Snake had forgotten about the crazy; the reminder brought a quick shock of
memory.

“Yes, the crazy’s another problem. But the storms are coming, it’s nearly
winter. I don’t know if I can get back from the city before then.” And it would
be better for Melissa to become established at the station, before Snake
returned, in case the trip to Center failed. Then, even if Snake had to leave,
Melissa would be able to remain.

“I don’t care about the storms,” Melissa said. “I’m not afraid.”

“I know you’re not. It’s just that there’s no reason for you to be in
danger.”

Melissa did not reply. Snake knelt down and turned the child toward her.

“Do you think I’m trying to avoid you now?”

After a few moments, Melissa said, “I don’t know what to think, Mistress
Snake. You said if I didn’t live here I could be responsible for myself and do
what I thought was right. But I don’t think it’s right for me to leave you, with
the crazy and the storms.”

Snake sat back on her heels. “I did say all that. I meant it, too.” She
looked down at her scarred hands, sighed, and glanced up again at Melissa. “I
better tell you the real reason I want you to go home. I should have told you
before.”

“What is it?” Melissa’s voice was tight, controlled; she was ready to be hurt
again. Snake took her hand.

“Most healers have three serpents. I only have two. I did something stupid
and the third one was killed.” She told Melissa about Arevin’s people, about
Stavin and Stavin’s younger father and Grass.

“There aren’t very many dreamsnakes,” Snake said. “It’s hard to make them
breed. Actually we never make them breed, we just wait and hope they might. The
way we get more is something like the way I made Squirrel.”

“With the special medicine,” Melissa said.

“Sort of.” The alien biology of dreamsnakes lent itself neither to viral
transduction nor to microsurgery. Earth viruses could not interact with the
chemicals the dreamsnakes used in place of DNA, and the healers had been
unsuccessful in isolating anything comparable to a virus from the alien
serpents. So they could not transfer the genes for dreamsnake venom into another
serpent, and no one had ever been successful in synthesizing all the venom’s
hundreds of components.

“I made Grass,” Snake said, “and four other dreamsnakes. But I can’t make
them anymore. My hands aren’t steady enough, the same thing’s wrong with them
that was wrong with my knee yesterday.” Sometimes she wondered if her arthritis
was as much psychological as physical, a reaction against sitting in the
laboratory for hours at a time, delicately manipulating the controls of the
micropipette and straining her eyes to find each of the innumerable nuclei in a
single cell from a dreamsnake. She had been the first healer in some years to
succeed in transplanting genetic material into an unfertilized ovum. She had had
to prepare several hundred to end up with Grass and his four siblings; even so,
her percentage was better than that of anyone else who had ever managed the
task. No one at all had ever discovered what made the serpents mature. So the
healers had a small stock of frozen immature ova, gleaned from the bodies of
dreamsnakes that had died, but no one could clone them; and a frozen stock of
what was probably dreamsnake sperm, cells too immature to fertilize the ova when
they were mixed in a test tube.

Snake believed her success to be a matter of luck as much as technique. If
her people had the technology needed to build one of the electron microscopes
described in their books, she felt sure they would find genes independent of the
nuclear bodies, molecules so small they could not be seen, too small to
transplant unless the micropipette sucked them up by chance.

“I’m going to Center to deliver a message, and to ask the people there to
help us get more dreamsnakes. But I’m afraid they’ll refuse. And if I have to go
home without any, after I lost mine, I don’t know what will happen. A few
dreamsnakes might have hatched since I left, some might even have been cloned,
but if not, I might not be allowed to be a healer. I can’t be a good one without
a dreamsnake.“

“If there aren’t any others they should give you one of the ones you made,”
Melissa said. “That’s the only thing that’s fair.”

“It wouldn’t be fair to the younger healers I gave them to, though,” Snake
said. “I’d have to go home and say to a brother or sister that they couldn’t be
a healer unless the dreamsnakes we have reproduce again.” She let out her breath
in a long sigh. “I want you to know all that. That’s why I want you to go home
before I do, so everyone gets a chance to know you. I had to get you away from
Ras, but if you go home with me, I don’t know for sure that things will be much
better.”

“Snake!” Melissa was angry. “No matter what, being with you will be better
than—than being in Mountainside. I don’t care what happens. Even if you hit me—”

“Melissa!” Snake said, as shocked as the child had been.

Melissa grinned, the right side of her mouth curving up slightly. “See?” she
said.

“Okay.”

“It’ll be all right,” Melissa said. “I don’t care what happens at the
healers’ station. And I know, the storms are dangerous. And I saw you after you
fought the crazy, so I know he’s dangerous too. But I still want to go with you.
Please don’t make me go with anybody else.”

“You’re sure.”

Melissa nodded.

“All right,” Snake said. She grinned. “I never adopted anybody before.
Theories aren’t the same when you actually have to start using them. We’ll go
together.” In truth, she appreciated the complete confidence that Melissa, at
least, had in her.

They walked down the hall hand in hand, swinging their arms like two children
instead of a child and an adult. Then they rounded the last corner and Melissa
suddenly pulled back. Gabriel was sitting outside Snake’s door, saddle-pack by
his side, his chin on his drawn-up knees.

“Gabriel,” Snake said.

He looked up, and this time he did not flinch when he saw Melissa.

“Hello,” he said to her. “I’m sorry.”

Melissa had turned toward Snake so the worst of the scar was hidden. “It’s
all right. Never mind. I’m used to it.”

“I wasn’t really awake last night
…
” Gabriel saw the
look on Snake’s face and fell silent.

Melissa glanced at Snake, who squeezed her hand, then at Gabriel, and back at
Snake. “I better—I’ll go get the horses ready.”

“Melissa—” Snake reached for her but she fled. Snake watched her go, sighed,
and opened the door to her room. Gabriel stood up.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

“You do have a knack.” She went inside, picked up her saddlebags, and tossed
them on the bed.

Gabriel followed her. “Please don’t be angry with me.”

“I’m not angry.” She opened the flaps. “I was last night, but I’m not now.”

“I’m glad.” Gabriel sat on the bed and watched her pack. “I’m ready to leave.
But I wanted to say goodbye. And thank you. And I’m sorry
…
”

“No more of that,” Snake said. “All right.”