Seeing his people would always remind her of Grass’s death, if she were ever able to forget it. Her mistakes and misjudgments of them were the reason Grass was gone. She had expected them to accept her word despite their fear, and without meaning to they had shown her how arrogant her assumptions were.

She shook off her depression. Now she had a chance to redeem herself. If she really could go with Jesse, find out where the dreamsnakes came from, and capture new ones — if she could even discover why they would not breed on earth — she could return in triumph instead of in disgrace, succeeding where her teachers and generations of healers had failed.

It was time to return to the camp. She climbed the low rise of jumbled rock that covered the mouth of the canyon, looking for Mist. The cobra was coiled on a large chunk of basalt.

At the top of the slope Snake reached for Mist, picked her up, and stroked her narrow head. She was not so formidable unexcited, hood folded, narrow-headed as any venomless serpent. She did not need a thick-jowled head, heavy with poison. Her venom was powerful enough to kill in delicate doses.

As Snake turned, the brilliant sunset drew her gaze. The sun was an orange blur on the horizon, radiating streaks of purple and vermilion through the gray clouds.

And then Snake saw the craters, stretching away across the desert below her. The earth was covered with great circular basins. Some, lying in the path of the lava flow, had caught and broken its smooth frozen billows. Others were clearer, great holes gouged in the earth, still distinct after so many years of driving sands. The craters were so large, spread over such a distance, that they could have only one source. Nuclear explosions had blasted them. The war itself was long over, almost forgotten, for it had destroyed everyone who knew or cared about the reasons it had happened.

Snake gazed over the ravaged land, glad to be no nearer. In places like this the effects of the war had lingered visibly and invisibly to Snake’s time; they would persist for centuries beyond her life. The canyon in which she and the partners were camped was probably not completely safe itself, but they had not been here long enough to be in serious danger.

Something unusual lay out in the rubble, in line with the brilliant setting sun so it was difficult for Snake to see. She squinted at it. She felt uneasy, as if she were spying on something she had no business knowing about.

The body of a horse, decaying in the heat, lay crumpled at the edge of a crater. The dead animal’s rigid legs poked grotesquely into the air, forced up by its swollen belly. Clasping the animal’s head, a gold bridle gleamed scarlet and orange in the sunset.

Snake released her breath in a sound part sigh, part moan.

She ran back to the serpent case and urged Mist inside, picked Sand up and started back toward the camp, cursing when the rattler in his mindlessly obstinate way tried to twine himself around her arm. She stopped and held him so he could slide into his compartment, and started running again while she was still fastening the catch. The case banged against her leg.

Panting, she reached the tent and ducked inside. Merideth and Alex were asleep. Snake knelt beside Jesse and carefully pulled back the sheet.

Little more than an hour had passed since Snake had examined Jesse last. The bruises down her side had darkened and deepened, and her body was unhealthily flushed. Snake felt her forehead. It was burning hot and paper-dry. Jesse did not respond to her touch. When Snake took her hand away the smooth skin looked darker. Within minutes, while Snake watched, horrified, another bruise began to form as the capillaries ruptured, their walls so damaged by radiation that mild pressure completed their destruction. The bandage on Jesse’s thigh suddenly reddened in the center with a stain of blood. Snake clenched her fists. She was shaking, deep inside, as if from penetrating cold.

“Merideth!”

In a moment Merideth was awake, yawning and mumbling sleepily. “What’s wrong?”

“How long did it take you to find Jesse? Did she fall in the craters?”

“Yes, she was prospecting. That’s why we come here — other artisans can’t match our work because of what Jesse finds here. But this time a rim gave way. We found her in the evening.”

A whole day, Snake thought. She must have been in one of the primary craters.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“Those craters are dangerous—”

“Do you believe all those old legends, healer? We’ve been coming here for a decade and nothing ever happened to us.”

Now was not the time for angry retorts. Snake glanced at Jesse again and realized that her own ignorance and the partnership’s contempt for the danger of the old world’s relics had unwittingly granted Jesse some mercy. Snake had treatments for radiation poisoning, but there was no treatment for anything this severe. Whatever she could have tried would only have prolonged Jesse’s death.

“What’s the matter?” For the first time Merideth’s voice showed fear.

“She has radiation poisoning.”

“Poisoning? How? She’s eaten and drunk nothing we haven’t tasted.”

“It’s from the crater. The ground is poisoned. The legends are true.”

Beneath deep tan, Merideth was pale. “Then do something, help her!”

“There’s nothing I can do.”

“You couldn’t help her injury, you can’t help her sickness—”

They stared at each other, both of them hurt and angry. Merideth’s gaze dropped first. “I’m sorry. I had no right…”

“I wish to the gods I were omnipotent, Merideth, but I’m not.”

Their conversation woke Alex, who rose and came toward them, stretching and scratching. “It’s time to—” He glanced back and forth from Snake to Merideth, then looked beyond to Jesse. “Oh, gods…”

The new mark on her forehead, where Snake had touched her, was slowly oozing blood.

Alex flung himself down beside her, reaching for her, but Snake held him back. He tried to push her away.

“Alex, I barely touched her. You can’t help her like that.”

He looked at her blankly. “Then how?” Snake shook her head.

Tears welling up, Alex pulled away from her. “It isn’t fair!” He ran out of the tent. Merideth started after him, hesitated at the entrance, and turned back. “He can’t understand, he’s so young.”

“He understands,” Snake said. She blotted Jesse’s forehead, trying not to rub or put pressure on her skin. “And he’s right, it isn’t fair. Who ever said anything was fair?” She cut off the words to spare Merideth her own bitterness over Jesse’s lost chances, snatched away by fate and ignorance and the remnants of another generation’s insanity.

“Merry?” Jesse groped in the air with a trembling hand.

“I’m here.” Merideth reached out but stopped, afraid to touch her.

“What’s the matter? Why do I…” She blinked slowly. Her eyes were bloodshot.

“Gently,” Snake whispered. Merideth enfolded Jesse’s fingers with hands soft as bird wings.

“Is it time to go?” The eagerness was tinged with terror, with unwillingness to realize something was wrong.

“No, love.”

“It’s so hot…” She started to raise her head, shifting her weight. She froze with a gasp. Information entered Snake’s mind without any conscious effort, a cold inhuman analysis she was trained for: bleeding into the joints. Internal bleeding. And in her brain?

“It never hurt like this.” She glanced at Snake without moving her head. “It’s something else, something worse.”

“Jesse, I—” Snake was first made aware of her tears by the taste of salt on her lips, mixed with the grit from the desert’s dust. She choked on words. Alex crept back into the tent. Jesse tried to speak again, but could only gasp.

Merideth grabbed Snake’s arm. She could feel the fingernails cutting her skin. “She’s dying.”