“No, no, I’m not ill. But I can’t understand how I reached this place before she did.”

“But why’s she coming home so early?”

Arevin gazed down at the intent young man, now as concerned as Arevin himself.

“I do not think I should tell her story for her,” he said. “Perhaps I should speak to her parents. Will you show me where they live?”

“I would if I could,” Thad said. “Only she doesn’t have any. Won’t I do? I’m her brother.”

“I’m sorry to cause you distress. I did not know your parents were dead.”

“They aren’t. Or they might be. I don’t know. I mean I don’t know who they are. Or who Snake’s are.”

Arevin felt thoroughly confused. He had never had any trouble understanding what Snake said to him. But he did not think he had comprehended half of what this youth had told him in only a few minutes.

“If you do not know who your parents are, or whose Snake’s are, how can you be her brother?”

Thad looked at him quizzically. “You really don’t know much about healers, do you?”

“No,” Arevin said, feeling that the conversation had taken still another unexplained turn. “I do not. We have heard of you, of course, but Snake is the only one to visit my clan.“

“The reason I asked,” Thad said, “is because most people know we’re all adopted. We don’t have families, exactly. We’re all one family.”

“Yet you said you are her brother, as if she did not have another.” Except for his blue eyes, and they were not the same shade at all, Thad did not look anything like Snake.

“That’s how we think of each other. I used to get in trouble a lot when I was a kid and she’d always stick up for me.”

“I see.” Arevin dismounted and adjusted his horse’s bridle, considering what the boy had told him. “You are not blood kin with Snake,” he said, “but you feel a special relationship to her. Is this correct?”

“Yes.” Thad’s easygoing attitude had vanished.

“If I tell you why I have come, will you advise me, thinking first of Snake, even if you should have to go against your own customs?”

Arevin was glad the youth hesitated, for he would not have been able to depend on an impulsive and emotional answer.

“Something really bad has happened, hasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Arevin said. “And she blames herself.”

“You feel a special relationship for her, too, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And she for you?”

“I think so.”

“I’m on her side,” Thad said. “Always.”

Arevin unbuckled the horse’s bridle and slipped it off so his mount could graze. He sat down beneath Thad’s fruit tree and the boy sat nearby.

“I come from the other side of the western desert,” Arevin said. “There we have no good serpents, only sand vipers whose bite means death…”

Arevin told his story and waited for Thad to respond, but the young healer stared at his scarred hands for a long time.

“Her dreamsnake was killed,” he said finally.

Thad’s voice held shock and hopelessness; the tone chilled Arevin all the way to his almost impervious, controlled center.

“It was not her fault,” Arevin said again, though he had continually stressed that fact. Thad now knew about the clan’s fear of serpents and even about Arevin’s sister’s horrible death. But Arevin could see quite clearly that Thad did not understand.

The boy looked up at him. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “This is really awful.” He paused and looked around and rubbed the heel of his hand across his forehead. “I guess we better talk to Silver. She was one of Snake’s teachers and she’s the eldest now.”

Arevin hesitated. “Is that wise? Pardon me, but if you, Snake’s friend, cannot comprehend how all this happened, will any of the other healers be able to?”

“I understand what happened!”

“You know what happened,” Arevin said. “But you do not understand it. I do not want to offend you, but I fear what I say is true.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Thad said. “I still want to help her. Silver will think of something to do.”

The exquisite valley in which the healers lived combined areas of total wilderness with places of complete civilization. What appeared to Arevin to be virgin climax forest, ancient and unchanging, spread as far as he could see, beginning on the north slope of the valley. Yet immediately downhill from the tremendous dark old trees, an array of windmills spun gaily. The forest of trees and the forest of windmills harmonized.

The station was a serene place, a small town of well-built wood and stone houses. People greeted Thad or waved to him, and nodded to Arevin. The faint shouts of a children’s game drifted down the breeze.

Thad left Arevin’s horse loose in a pasture, then led Arevin to a building somewhat larger than the others, and somewhat removed from the main group. Inside, Arevin was surprised to observe, the walls were not of wood but of smooth white glazed ceramic tile. Even where there were no windows, the illumination was as bright as day, neither the eerie blue glow of bioluminescence nor the soft yellow light of gas flames. The place possessed a feeling of activity quite different from the placid atmosphere of the town itself. Through a half-open door Arevin saw several young people, younger even than Thad, bending over complicated instruments, completely absorbed in their work.

Thad gestured toward the students. “These are the labs. We grind the lenses for the microscopes right here at the station. Make our own glassware too.”

Almost all the people Arevin saw here — and, now that he thought of it, most of the people in the village — were either very young or elderly. The young ones in training, he thought, and the old ones teaching. Snake and the others out practicing their profession.

Thad climbed a flight of stairs, went down a carpeted hall, and knocked softly on a door. They waited for several minutes, and Thad seemed to think this quite ordinary, for he did not become impatient. Finally a pleasant, rather high-pitched voice said, “Come in.”

The room beyond was not so stark and severe as the labs. It was wood-paneled, with a large window overlooking the windmills. Arevin had heard of books, but he had never actually seen one. Here, two walls lined with shelves were full of them. The old healer sitting in a rocking chair held a book in her lap.

“Thad,” she said, nodding, with a welcoming yet questioning tone.

“Silver.” He brought Arevin in. “This is a friend of Snake’s. He’s come a long way to talk to us.”

“Sit down.” Her voice and her hands shook slightly. She was very old, her joints swollen and twisted. Her skin was smooth and soft and translucent, deeply lined on the cheeks and forehead. Her eyes were blue.

Following Thad’s lead, Arevin sat on a chair. He felt uncomfortable; he was accustomed to sitting cross-legged on the ground. . “What do you wish to say?”

“Are you Snake’s friend?” Arevin asked. “Or only her teacher?”

He thought she might laugh, but she gazed at him somberly. “Her friend.”

“Silver nominated her for her name,” Thad said. “Did you think I wanted you to talk to just anybody?”

Still, Arevin wondered if he should tell his story to this kindly old woman, for he remembered Snake’s words all too clearly: “My teachers seldom give the name I bear, and they’ll be disappointed.” Perhaps Silver’s disappointment would be great enough to exile Snake from her people.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Silver said. “Snake is my friend, and I love her. You need not fear me.”

Arevin told his story for the second time that day, watching Silver’s face intently. Her expression did not change. Surely, after all the experiences she must have had, she could understand what had happened better than young Thad could.

“Ah,” she said. “Snake went across the desert.” She shook her head. “My brave and impulsive child.”

“Silver,” Thad said, “what can we do?”