They breakfasted on jerky and fruit, and the wine, which struck quickly and hard. Alex began to yawn almost immediately, but every time he nodded, he staggered to his feet and went outside to stir Jesse’s broth.
“Alex, go to sleep,” Merideth finally said.
“No, I’m not tired.” He stirred, tasted, took the pot off the fire, set it inside to cool.
“Alex—” Merideth took his hand and drew him to the patterned rug. “If she calls us, we’ll hear her. If she moves, we’ll go to her. We can’t help her if we’re falling over our own feet from weariness.”
“But I… I…” Alex shook his head, but fatigue and the wine stayed with him. “What about you?”
“Your night was harder than my ride. I need to relax a few more minutes, but then I’ll come to bed.”
Reluctantly, gratefully, Alex lay down nearby. Merideth stroked his hair until, in a few moments, Alex began to snore. Merideth glanced at Snake and smiled. “When he first came with us, Jesse and I wondered how we could ever sleep with such a noise. Now we can hardly sleep without it.”
Alex’s snore was loud and low, and every so often he caught his breath and snuffled. Snake smiled. “You can get used to nearly anything, I guess.” She took one last sip of wine and returned the flask. Merideth, reaching for it, suddenly hiccupped, then, blushing, stoppered the bottle instead of drinking.
“Wine affects me too easily. I should never use it.”
“At least you know. You probably never make a fool of yourself.”
“When I was younger—” Merideth laughed at memories. “I was foolish then, and poor as well. A bad combination.”
“I can think of better.”
“Now we’re rich, and I’m perhaps a little less foolish. But what good is it all, healer? Money can’t help Jesse. Nor wisdom.”
“You’re right,” Snake said. “They can’t help her, and neither can I. Only you and Alex can.”
“I know it.” Merideth’s voice was soft and sad. “But it will take Jesse a long time to get used to that.”
“She’s alive, Merideth. The accident came so close to killing her — isn’t it enough to be grateful for, that she’s alive?”
“To me, yes, it is.” The words had begun to slur. “But you don’t know Jesse. Where she’s from, why she’s here—” Merideth stared groggily at Snake, hesitating, then plunging ahead. “She’s here because she can’t stand to be trapped. Before we were together, she was rich and powerful and safe. But her whole life and all her work were planned out for her. She would have been one of the rulers of Center—”
“The city!”
“Yes, it was all hers, if she wanted it. But she didn’t want to live under a stone sky. She came outside with nothing. To make her own destiny. To be free. Now — the things she enjoys most will be beyond her. How can I tell her to be glad she’s alive, when she knows she’ll never walk on the desert again, or find me a diamond for some patron’s earring, never gentle another horse, never make love?”
“I don’t know,” Snake said. “But if you and Alex see her life as a tragedy, that’s what it will be.”
Just before dawn the heat eased slightly, but as soon as it grew light the temperature rose again. The camp was in deep shade, but even in the protection of the rock walls the heat was like a pressure.
Alex snored and Merideth slept peacefully near him, oblivious to the sound, one strong hand curled over Alex’s back. Snake lay on the tent floor, facedown, arms outstretched. The fine fibers in the pile of the rug prickled softly against her cheek, damp with her sweat. Her hand throbbed but she could not sleep, and she did not have the energy to rouse herself.
She drifted into a dream in which Arevin appeared. She could see him more clearly than she could remember him when she was awake. It was a curious dream, childishly chaste. She barely touched Arevin’s fingertips, and then he began to fade away. Snake reached for him desperately. She woke up throbbing with sexual tension, her heart racing.
Jesse stirred. For a moment Snake did not move, then, reluctantly, she raised herself. She glanced at the other two partners. Alex slept soundly with the momentary forgetfulness of youth, but sheer weariness lined Merideth’s face and sweat plastered down the shiny, black curls. Snake left Merideth and Alex alone and knelt by Jesse, who lay face down as they last had turned her, her cheek resting on one hand, her other hand shielding her eyes.
She’s feigning sleep, Snake thought, for the line of her arm, the curl of her fingers, showed not relaxation but tension. Or wishing it, like me. Both of us would like to sleep, sleep and ignore reality.
“Jesse,” she said softly, and again, “Jesse, please.”
Jesse sighed and let her hand fall to the sheet.
“There’s broth here when you feel strong enough to drink it. And wine, if you’d like.”
A barely perceptible shake of the head, though Jesse’s lips were dry. Snake would not allow her to become dehydrated, but she did not want to have to argue her into eating, either.
“It’s no good,” Jesse said.
“Jesse—”
Jesse reached out and laid her hand over Snake’s. “No, it’s all right. I’ve thought about what’s happened. I’ve dreamed about it.” Snake noticed that her dark brown eyes were flecked with gold. The pupils were very small. “I can’t live like this. Neither can they. They’d try — they’d destroy themselves trying. Healer—”
“Please…” Snake whispered, afraid again, more afraid than she had ever been in her life. “Please don’t—”
“Can’t you help me?”
“Not to die,” Snake said. “Don’t ask me to help you die!”
She bolted to her feet and outside. The heat slammed against her, but there was nowhere to go to escape it. The canyon walls and tumbled piles of broken rock rose up around her.
Head down, trembling, with sweat stinging her eyes, Snake stopped and collected herself. She had acted foolishly and she was ashamed of her panic. She must have frightened Jesse, but she could not yet make herself return and face her. She walked farther from the tent, not toward the desert where the sun and sand would waver like a fantasy, but toward a pocket in the canyon wall that was fenced off as a corral.
It seemed to Snake hardly necessary to pen the horses at all, for they stood in a motionless group, heads down, dusty, lop-eared. They did not even flick their tails; no insects existed in the black desert. Snake wondered where Merideth’s handsome bay mare was. These are a sorry lot of beasts, she thought. Hanging on the fence or lying in careless heaps, their tack shone with precious metal and jewels. Snake put her hands on one of the roped wooden stakes and rested her chin on her fists.
At the sound of falling water she turned, startled. At the other side of the corral, Merideth filled a leather trough held up by a wooden frame. The horses came alive, raising their heads, pricking their ears. They started across the sand, trotting, then cantering, all in a turmoil, squealing and nipping and kicking up their heels at each other. They were transformed. They were beautiful.
Merideth stopped nearby, holding the limp, empty waterskin, looking at the small herd rather than at Snake. “Jesse has a gift with horses. Choosing them, training them… What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry. I must have upset her. I had no right—”
“To tell her to live? Maybe you don’t, but I’m glad you did.”
“It doesn’t matter what I tell her,” Snake said. “She has to want to live herself.”
Merideth waved and yelled. The horses nearest the water shied away, giving the others a chance to drink. They jostled each other, draining the trough dry, then standing near it and waiting expectantly for more. “I’m sorry,” Merideth said. “That’s all for now.”
“You must have to carry a great deal of water for them.”
“Yes, but we need all of them. We come in with water and we go out with the ore and the stones Jesse finds.” The bay mare put her head over the rope fence and nuzzled Merideth’s sleeve, stretching to be scratched behind the ears and under the jaw. “Since Alex came with us we travel with more…things. Luxuries. Alex said we’d impress people that way, so they’d want to buy from us.”
“Does it work?”
“It seems to. We live very well now. I can choose my commissions.”
Snake stared at the horses, who wandered one by one to the shady end of the corral. The vague glow of the sun had crept up over the edge of the wall, and Snake could feel the heat on her face.
“What are you thinking?” Merideth asked.
“How to make Jesse want to live.”
“She won’t live uselessly. Alex and I love her. We’d take care of her no matter what. But that isn’t enough for her.”
“Does she have to walk to be useful?”
“Healer, she’s our prospector.” Merideth looked at Snake sadly. “She’s tried to teach me how to look and where to look. I understand what she tells me, but when I go out I’m as likely as not to find nothing but fused glass and fool’s gold.”
“Have you showed her your job?”
“Of course. We can each do a little of the other’s work. But we each have a talent. She’s better at my job than I am at hers and I’m better at hers than either of us is at Alex’s, but people don’t understand her designs. They’re too strange. They’re beautiful.“ Merideth sighed, holding out a bracelet for Snake to see, the only ornament Merideth wore. It was silver, without stones, geometric and multilayered without being bulky. Merideth was right: it was beautiful, but it was strange. ”No one will buy them. She knows that. I’d do anything. I’d lie to her, if it would help. But she’d know. Healer — “ Merideth flung the waterskin to the sand. ”Isn’t there anything you can do?“
“I can deal with infections and diseases and tumors. I can even do surgery that isn’t beyond my tools. But I can’t force the body to heal itself.”
“Can anyone?”
“Not… not anyone that I know of, on this earth.”
“You’re not a mystic,” Merideth said. “You don’t mean some spirit might cause a miracle. You mean off the earth the people might be able to help.”
“They might,” Snake said slowly, sorry she had spoken as she had. She had not expected Merideth to sense her resentment, though she should have. The city affected all the people around it; it was like the center of a whirlpool, mysterious and fascinating. And it was the place the offworlders sometimes landed. Because of
