Free Behind the Eyes of Dreamers by Pamela Sargent Page A

their eyes and see herself.
    They should have been content in Aniya’s house, reflecting their creator’s thoughts, their solitude undisturbed by contact with the presence of others. Once, they had been in perfect accord, passing their days in the games and simulated experiences Aniya preferred. Aniya’s helpmind, the nexus that expressed itself through their dwelling, had been imprinted with her thought patterns and knew their desires so well that they rarely had to address it directly as it saw to their needs. Their peaceful days were untroubled; Aniya’s happiness was their own.
    Yet Josef had left them, and Aniya had been too distraught to stop him. Orielna recalled the cruel words he had spoken before he closed his link and descended the hill outside the house, determined to find out what he was apart from Aniya; he could no longer endure the sight of her. He had taunted her with that, mocking the way she had tried to fill her little world with other versions of herself.
    “You love yourself,” he had said. “You can’t bear the presence of anyone else. But there must be some self-hatred inside you, too, or I couldn’t want to leave you so much. You’ve wiped every memory of yours that might cause you pain, which means there are things inside you that you can’t face, and I’m forced to share your uncertainty about what you are—what I am. I won’t erase anything, though—I want to remember what I’m leaving behind. I want to see every part of you that’s in me die while I become something more than your reflection.”
    Days had passed before Aniya recovered, and Orielna had felt as abandoned as her sharer did. They had finally convinced themselves that he would return. He was too much like Aniya; he could not live among other people. They had smiled a little over his absurd notion that he could, as he put it, become what he might have been. He would have been nothing without Aniya; he lived only because she had requested him from the Net. He had been only a lifeless body, a blank slate, a mass of biological material shaped to suit Aniya’s tastes, awaiting the imprint of her thought patterns. He was hers; when he realized that, he would come back.
    But he had not returned, and then Kitte’s message had arrived. Why had he killed her? He would have known that her link was open, that she would be restored to life, demanding that Aniya take responsibility for her eidolon. He must have thought his violent deed would compel Aniya to have him erased; that was one sure way of escaping her for good.
    Orielna was like Josef; she knew that she should be able to sense his motives. He could never have killed Kitte if his link had been open; the minds would have kept him in balance. He probably regretted it now; he might even be hoping that he would be found and restored to his sharer. That thought cheered her for only a moment. Away from her and Aniya, Josef might have diverged; he might have changed too much for them ever to see their thoughts mirrored in him again. If that was so, having him erased might be a mercy for all of them.
    She halted and leaned against a tree. She had strayed from the path and could no longer see the wall through the forest. She opened her link so that it could guide her to her destination, a hut some distance away where a hunter named Daro lived. Josef was in the Garden somewhere, his link closed so that no one could track him that way, alone, perhaps desperately afraid. He might be ready to leave by the time she found him.
    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