Dreamsnake by Vonda D. McIntyre Page B

camp.
    “Yes, afterward.”
    “No disease afterward?”
    “Fewer. I can’t stop all. No measles. No scarlet fever. No lockjaw—”
    “Lockjaw! You stop that?”
    “Yes. Not forever but for a long time.”
    “We will come,” the collector said, turned, and walked away.
    In Grum’s camp, Pauli was giving Swift a brisk rub-down while the mare pulled
wisps of hay from a bundle. Pauli had the most beautiful hands Snake had ever
seen, large yet delicate, long-fingered and strong, uncoarsened by the hard work
she did. Even though she was tall, her hands still should have looked too big
for her size, but they did not. They were graceful and expressive. She and Grum
were as different as two people could be, except for the air of gentleness
shared by grandmother and granddaughter, and by all Pauli’s cousins that Snake
had met. Snake had not spent enough time in Grum’s camp to know how many of her
grandchildren she had with her, or even to know the name of the little girl who
sat nearby polishing Swift’s saddle.
    “How’s Squirrel?” Snake asked.
    “Fine and happy, child. You can see him there, under the tree, too lazy to
run. But he’s sound again. You, now, you need a bed and rest.”
    Snake watched her tiger-pony, who stood among the summertrees, switching his
tail. He looked so comfortable and content that she did not call him.
    Snake was weary but she could feel all her muscles tight across her neck and
shoulders. Sleep would be impossible until some of the tension had drained away.
She wanted to think about her camp. Perhaps she would decide that it had, as
Grum said, simply been vandalized by a crazy. If so, she must understand it and
accept it. She was not used to so much happening by chance.
    “I’m going to take a bath, Grum,” she said, “and then you can put me
someplace where I won’t be in your way. It won’t be for long.”
    “As long as you are here and we are here. You’re welcome with us,
healer-child.”
    Snake hugged her. Grum patted her shoulder.
     
    Near Grum’s camp one of the springs that fed the oasis sprang from stone and
trickled down the rocks. Snake climbed to where sun-warmed water pooled in
smooth basins. She could see the whole oasis: five camps on the shore, people,
animals. The faint voices of children and the high yap of a dog drifted toward
her through the heavy, dusty air. In a ring around the lake the summertrees
stood like feathers, like a wreath of pale green silk.
    At her feet, moss softened the rock around a bathing-basin. Snake pulled off
her boots and stepped onto the cool living carpet.
    She stripped and waded into the water. It was just below body temperature,
pleasant but not shocking in the morning heat. There was a brisker pool higher
in the rocks, a warmer one below. Snake lifted a stone from an outlet that
allowed overflow water to spill down upon the sand. She knew better than to
allow dirty water to continue flowing to the oasis. If she did, several angry
caravannaires would come up to tell her to stop. They would do that as quietly
and firmly as they would move animals corralled too close to the shore, or ask
someone to leave who had the bad manners to relieve himself at water’s edge.
Diseases transmitted in fouled water did not exist in the desert.
    Snake slid farther into the tepid water, feeling it rise around her, a
pleasurable line crossing her thighs, her hips, her breasts. She lay back
against the warm black stone and let tension flow slowly away. The water tickled
the back of her neck.
    She thought back over the last few days: somehow the incidents seemed spread
over a long span of time. They were embedded in a fog of exhaustion. She looked
at her right hand. The ugly bruise was gone, and nothing was left of the sand
viper’s bite but two shiny pink puncture scars. She clenched her fist and held
it: no stiffness, no weakness.
    Such a short time for so many changes. Snake had never before encountered