Behind the Eyes of Dreamers (9 page)

She thrashed her way through the thick foliage, prodded gently by her link in the right direction whenever she strayed. This place shouldn’t, she thought, be called the Garden; gardens were tamed, planned to delight the eye and bring peace to the mind. Daro might have led her through this unruly growth, but had insisted that she make her way to his hut by herself. She had been told to bring no more than a wand and a pack of supplies. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead; she longed for the cooler, dryer air of Aniya’s house, for all the comforts and aids that were forbidden here.

She considered what she knew about Daro. The man was connected to the world outside the Garden only by his link. He came to the wall for supplies, but had not passed through the gate to the other side for many years. He occasionally acted as a guide to those wishing to explore the Garden, and he had agreed to help her. He lived alone. His past before he had entered the Garden was, at his command, locked away in the records of the Net and was inaccessible to anyone else, but that was not uncommon. Aniya had closed off her own past life before fading her memories. Perhaps Daro had also chosen forgetfulness.

Orielna opened her link fully, hoping to find a message from Daro. He had to know that she was in the Garden. She heard nothing, then closed all the channels except the one linking her to the Net. She did not even know what the hunter looked like; his image was something else he chose to hide.

It did not matter. Daro would help her, for she could never find Josef by herself as long as his link was closed. She dampened her thoughts and trudged on.

She was still far from Daro’s home when the night grew too dark to see. Her link could have guided her through the darkness, but the long walk had wearied her. She climbed up a small hill and sat down under the trees, keeping her wand and a small globe of light at her side. The light would keep animals away, but she was prepared to stun any that approached.

The leafy branches overhead hid the night sky. She missed the familiar sight; with Aniya, she had often sat in their courtyard, gazing at the stars and the specks of light that marked the Hoop of Habitats.

Most of humanity lived in the hollowed-out asteroids and glittering metallic eggs of the Hoop that encircled the Earth, shaping their worldlets to please themselves. In the past, other Habitats had fled the solar system, scattering like seeds into deep space. The people in the Habitats that remained felt no need to wander, finding enough unknown territory in their own minds, wills, dreams, and desires.

Long ago, human beings had created the Net of cybernetic mentalities to serve them. They had seeded near-space with their Habitats and had transformed the barren, hellish, sister-planet of Venus into a world of tropical gardens, tree-covered mountains, and warm, wide oceans. They had set a bracelet of Habitats around Mars and had made Earth’s moon burgeon with life. They had banished the deserts creeping across Earth’s lands and then, as though exhausted by their labors, they found rest in their Habitats and on the garden worlds they had created.

Once, according to the Net of minds, the planet-dwellers and those who lived in the Habitats had been separated by suspicion and distrust, but their links with the Net had drawn them together in the end. Those who had sought to transcend the bounds of human nature were now wandering the cosmos. The descendants of those who had rejected the linking of humankind with the Net hid in Earth’s Garden and in the wilder lands of Venus and the Moon.

The rest lived in the dream their ancestors had imagined. Orielna, like her sharer, was moved whenever she contemplated the efforts of those who had made her peaceful life possible and who had not lived to experience their dream. Lately, however, thinking of the past made her feel mournful and adrift, and she had no right to be unhappy. Any misery was an affront to those long-dead dreamers. She wondered why the Net allowed unhappiness to exist.

A creature hooted overhead; something howled in the distance. “Daro?” she called through her link. No one answered.

The night amplified her loneliness and fear. She wanted to reach out to Aniya through her link, but her sharer had not wished to experience this search with her. Orielna had understood why immediately. Aniya did not want to endure the difficulties and uncertainties of the search until it was over and Josef was restored to her.

She stretched out, keeping her wand under her hand. Her link was open; if harm came to her here, the link would call upon all of her body’s resources to heal her and would summon aid. She tried to console herself with that fact, yet knew she could die in the Garden.

She had rarely thought about death before Kitte’s message. She might die, but as long as her link was open, she could be revived. Any damage to her body would be repaired. If any of her memories were lost in the moment of death, the Net would restore them; she would not even know they had been temporarily lost.

Knowing this did not comfort her now. Against all reason, she found herself wondering if death were a kind of erasure, if it was the once-dead person who lived again or only a resurrected body with a duplicated mental pattern replaced by the minds. Such a person would be like an eidolon, but one unaware of what it was. It would heal and have its memories, but would it be the same person?

This idea was too disturbing to entertain for long, but others must have thought it. Maybe the minds of the Net knew it to be true and kept the knowledge from humanity, as they protected people from so much else. Perhaps this was why they insisted on punishing or restraining any murderer, even though the dead could be revived. Josef might be a murderer in the truest sense; Kitte had claimed that the break inside her would never heal. Her earlier self, now lost, had no one else to speak for it.

Aniya doesn’t care if I die, Orielna thought. She hasn’t come here because she’s guessed how final death can be; she knows that if she died, only her eidolon would live afterward. But I’m only an eidolon now. It doesn’t matter what happens to me; she’d never know the difference, and neither would I.

Maybe I don’t want to be hers anymore.

The notion shocked her. She quickly brought herself into balance and closed off her thoughts before falling asleep.

The forest was filled with the songs of birds. Orielna waited until the patch of sky above was lighter, then went down the hill toward a creek. She did not have much farther to go; this stream would lead her to Daro’s home.

The Garden was still strange to her. Aniya had no plants in her tiled courtyard, and the land around her house and hill was flat and open to the sky. Here, Orielna felt as if the trees might close in around her. How had Josef dared to come here with his link shut and no one to help him? She composed herself and began to follow the narrow waterway.

She walked for most of the morning in a subdued trance before her link alerted her that Daro was near. As she rounded a bend in the creek, she saw a clearing just above the rocky bank. A man holding a wand was waiting outside a hut.

“Daro,” a voice whispered through her link. Orielna approached him cautiously, then raised a hand to her lips in dismay. The hut behind him was a primitive structure of wood and grass, and Daro didn’t look like any of the images of people she had seen. He was a small, muscular man with ungroomed curly brown hair and sun-browned skin, his only clothing stained white shorts and muddy sandals. Could the minds have chosen to create such a man, or had someone with a distorted aesthetic sense selected his qualities? His body seemed too thick, his muscles too sharply defined.

“Took you long enough to get here,” he said, his voice low and harsh. “But I was wondering if you’d get here at all.”

She swallowed. “I was hoping you’d find me and lead me here yourself.”

Daro shrugged. “Some people come here and get too afraid to stay, even with links and knowing they can be rescued. I don’t need the burden of a cowardly companion—I had to see if you could get here alone.”

“Well, I have.”

“Probably had to dull most of your thoughts to do it.”

His face, she thought, might have been handsome if his bones were more delicate; a scowl deformed his features. His eyes were nearly as green as the leaves on the tree limbs that drooped over the grassy roof of his hut. His tanned face was smooth, but his arms and legs were covered with fine brown hairs; coarser curls grew on his chest. She repressed a shudder.

“You’re surprised at how ugly I am,” he said. “Now you know why I didn’t show you an image.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that.”

“Of course you were. People get used to my appearance after a while—it doesn’t seem so strange in this context. But it does surprise some when they first see me.”

She wondered why he didn’t have his body sculpted. Few changes would have been required—a little thinning of the bones and muscles, the removal of some of his body hair, refinement of the strong-featured face. But the man was solitary and might not care how he looked much of the time. Perhaps he even took a little pleasure in startling those who sought him out.

She walked toward him slowly; her nose wrinkled as she smelled his sweat. “Stop right there.” He raised his wand. “I’m willing to guide you, but don’t get too close to me. You’re not used to other people anyway, so it’ll be easier if you keep your distance.”

Orielna stepped back. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said haltingly. “My sharer has led a very quiet and removed life.”

“You’re also like the one you seek, so we’ll both be better off if you don’t come too close to me.”

She winced. “I’m in balance, and if Josef had been, he wouldn’t have—” She looked away. “You might have let Aniya and me know more about you, so I’d know how to behave. I’m not sure of how to act with other people. If you’d allow the Net to tell me a little more about you—”

“I’m a hunter and I’ll help you. That’s all you need to know. Maybe you won’t be here that long. Your sharer may get lonely and summon you.”

“Aniya’s used to being alone, and she had a new eidolon brought to her before I left, a man named Karel.” Orielna felt a pang as she thought of her sharer and the eidolon with her now. “He looks a lot like me,” she added proudly, “slender and blond, with her black eyes and—”

“The perfect companion, no doubt.”

She drew herself up, annoyed at his tone. “I hope your helpmind won’t be too disturbed by my presence to tend to me. If you’d rather not have me issue commands to it myself, I’m willing to let you—”

“I have no helpmind here.”

She gritted her teeth. He might have warned her of that earlier. How could he bear to live this way? Except for his link, he might almost have been an unchanged man.

Daro gestured at a bundle near his feet. “I’ll pitch this tent tonight for myself. You may use the hut—the ditch behind it is the latrine. You should rest for most of the day—we’ll have to start early tomorrow.”

He stepped aside as she entered the hut. A globe glowed on a wooden platform; shelves of supplies lined the walls and a small hide-covered bed occupied one corner. Orielna slipped off her pack and sat on the bed, glaring at the dirt floor. Maybe she should be grateful he didn’t have a helpmind; a nexus with his sullen, unpleasant manner might have been unbearable.

She calmed herself at last and went outside. Daro had already pitched his tent. “You’ll find water in the jugs on the shelves,” he said. “I fetched it from the stream below—it’s safe to drink.”

She sat down in front of the hut. His comment was odd; even tainted water would produce only a mild discomfort before her body recovered. Daro swatted at a fly, then seated himself. “Excuse me for mentioning this,” she said, “but I thought you hunters only stunned your game, and there’s a hide on your bed.” Her voice caught. “I can’t sleep on a dead animal’s skin.”

Daro leaned forward. “It was a gift. If you don’t want it there, fold it up and put it on a shelf.”

Unchanged people must have given it to him; only they would kill an animal. “I see,” she said. “I’m a little surprised that you’d want to use it.”

“I use what I can.”

Orielna shuddered, wondering how she would endure his company. “Have you seen Josef?” she asked. Daro shook his head. “Then where are we to look?”

“I didn’t
see
him. I didn’t say he hadn’t passed this way.” His lip curled; his green eyes seemed to be mocking her. He reached into a pocket and held up a slender gold wristband. “Have you seen this before?”

“Josef wore that kind of bracelet,” she replied. “But others must have bracelets like it.”

“Those who come here usually don’t wear such ornaments.” He pointed to his right. “Whoever wore it was traveling east—I saw the trail. It’s a cold trail now, but we can still search to the east. If he kept moving in that direction, he might have come to a village I know.”

“A village?” she asked, staring at his muscular arm.

“Of the unchanged.” He was silent for a moment. “Don’t look so surprised. You knew we weren’t alone in here.”

Orielna steadied herself. “How would they have treated him?”

He folded his arms. “They might have welcomed him, or they might have run away from him. It depends on how they felt at the time.” He chuckled ominously. “If he didn’t conduct himself properly and offended them, or they saw he couldn’t protect himself, they might even have killed him, in which case your sharer’s problem is solved.”