Behind the Eyes of Dreamers (5 page)

“I have to talk to you, Gabe.”

“Sure.”

“Not here.” Suzanne eyed the people sitting in front of Gabe’s dome nervously and felt that they were all watching her. She forced herself to look at them directly and realized that they were paying her little attention. “I mean, I feel like walking around.”

“Okay.” Gabe hoisted himself off the ground and brushed off his dirty rumpled trousers. Oddly enough, he seemed to be maintaining his girth on the Aadaen diet. He took her arm gently. “Back to your room?”

“Joel’s there. I mean, I think he’s still asleep.” She recognized a face in front of one of the domes and waved at it while nodding her head. “Let’s walk on the highway.”

The weather was warm but not humid. White clouds danced across the blue sky under the benevolent gaze of the sun. A group of adolescent boys had somehow gotten hold of a baseball and bat and were playing a game on the highway. Farther down the road, Suzanne could see a group of children with some Aadae. They too were playing a game, chasing what looked like cylinders on wheels across the safety islands. Suzanne and Gabe walked toward the city, past the baseball players.

“I have to talk about Joel,” she said. “I’m worried.”

“What’s the problem this time?”

“It isn’t just a personal thing, Gabe. I’m scared. Joel’s been out nights, I don’t know where he goes. Maybe it’s none of my business, I guess I should be used to it by now. But the thing is …” She lowered her voice. “A couple of other people want to know where he goes, too, Gabe; they were asking me about it this morning. They weren’t being gentle. I think they would have beaten it out of me if they thought I knew.”

Gabe scratched at his beard. In the absence of razor blades he, like most of the men, was looking shaggier than usual. “You don’t know where he goes?”

“For God’s sake, Gabe. No, I don’t. I thought you might. I thought you could tell me what’s going on.”

“I think you should tell me who wanted to know about Joel, Suzanne.”

“Asenath Berry. You’ve seen her, the good-looking redhead, the whore. She and her friend Warren wanted to know. I was dumb enough to think Asenath wanted to be my friend.”

Gabe sighed and was silent for a few seconds. She could hear the shouts of the baseball-playing boys in back of them. “I’ll talk to her,” Gabe said at last. “She won’t bother you again.”

“Then you do know something.” She stopped walking and faced him. “Tell me. What is it?”

“I shouldn’t tell you. I tried not to; I thought it was best that you stay out of it. But I guess you have a right to know. A group of us have been making some plans; that’s all I can say. Joel’s part of the group. So is Asenath. Some of us have been a little suspicious of Joel lately. It seems he doesn’t go directly home from our little get-togethers. Asenath must have taken it upon herself to find out why.”

She turned away from Gabe, bewildered. “Now I’ve just upset you,” he muttered. “It’s probably nothing. We’re all a little paranoid; we have to be. We’ll probably find out he’s just visiting a friend or something. Don’t worry, he’s not that involved with us anyway; we’ve been holding meetings without him once in a while. I don’t think he wants to get tangled up in anything too dangerous. You know Joel.”

Gabe was leaving something out. Suddenly she didn’t want to hear any more, didn’t want to know what Gabe or Joel or anyone else might be planning. “He’s seeing someone else,” she said. “He’s seeing another girl. It’s happened before.”
That must be it.
The thought left her empty, almost relieved.

“Why do you stay with him, Suzanne?”

“I don’t know. What difference does it make now?” She turned to the city. “Let’s just keep walking, Gabe, let’s go back to the city; they’ll never find us there, we’ll get Joel and go back and we can sit around drinking at Mojo’s like we used to.”

“You know we can’t.”

“Why not?”

“They’ll find us. We should go back, Suzanne. Come on, I’ll walk you to your dome.”

“I’d rather not go back there right now,” she said wearily. She went to the side of the road and sat down on some grass. “You can leave if you want, Gabe, I think I’d rather be alone right now anyway.”

“You’re sure, Suzanne? You’ll be okay?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You won’t do anything silly?”

“No.”

“Well, if you want to talk to me later or anything, feel free.” She watched him shuffle back down the highway, shoulders slumped forward.

She pulled at the grass near her foot. Things were slipping away from her again as they always had. Her relationship with Joel had always seemed fortuitous. He had drifted into her life at a party she almost didn’t attend; he could very well drift out again and there was nothing she could do about it. At worst he would get involved in some foolhardy scheme with Gabe and the others, resulting in disaster; she was convinced that the Aadae could not be defeated. At best, he would stay with her and they would continue living in the dome as they had with no purpose other than constructing alien objects for the Aadae. The thought made her shudder. It was useless to look ahead; the best thing to do was to get through each day, forfeiting any hopes. She had practice at that already.

A cloud danced in front of the sun, shadowing the road in front of her. She shivered in the cooler air.

Joel had disappeared again. In the morning, his mat was empty. Suzanne, awake at dawn, was outside the dome, shivering slightly in the wet air.

A heavy fog hung over the domed settlement, its gray masses almost indistinguishable from the metal domes. Its tendrils wound along the pathway and wrapped themselves around her feet. Suzanne stepped away from the doorway into the fog and was soon lost in its billowing masses, unable to see more than dim shapes. She was hidden and protected.

She was not looking for Joel. She didn’t really want to know where he was and didn’t want to risk confronting him in the presence of someone else. She tried to think about him objectively in the gray silence. It was foolish to think she could be everything to him, that she could fulfill all his needs, particularly in the present situation. He had always come back before. She demanded little sexually, content to satisfy Joel’s needs with few of her own. She thought of Paul, whom she had loved while still in school. After two months, she had finally allowed Paul to share her cot in the dormitory room, twisting against him frantically during the night. She had satisfied him, but not herself. She avoided Paul after that. There was another, a boy whose name she couldn’t remember, at a party, and with him there were only spasms and a drained, nauseous feeling afterward. With Joel she acted, going through the motions but always distant, her mind drifting off as he entered her. At times she would feel a twinge or an occasional spasm. She knew she loved him, or at least had loved him once; yet if he had remained with her, never touching her except for a kiss or a few hugs, she would have been content.
I can’t expect him to be satisfied with that; no one would be. Why shouldn’t he see someone else? It’s surprising he stays with me at all.
Her heart twisted at the thought. Her mind throbbed, recoiling from the image of Joel with a vague female shape, and tears stung her eyes. She hated her body, a piece of perambulating dead meat, an anesthetized machine.
No, not anesthetized.
She could, after all, feel pain.

She was lost in the fog. She no longer knew where her own dome was. She kept walking, thinking that if she could find the highway, she could reorient herself.

“Hey.” She turned. “Hey.” Two young black men stood in the doorway of a dome, watching her. They were smiling, and one of them gestured to her. She fled into the fog, turning down another path and almost running until she was sure the two men were far behind. Then she suddenly felt shame.
They probably just wanted to ask me something.
She shook off the thought.
I have to be careful.
But she wondered if she would have hurried away if the men had been white. Her cheeks burned.

She was more lost than before. She stopped in front of a dome and tried to figure out where she was. She should have come to the highway by now.

She peered inside the dome tentatively, then stepped back. It was guarded by two Aadae. Inside, she could see aliens sleeping on the floor in the large central room. She had not seen the inside of one of their dwellings before, afraid of approaching one. The guards looked at her inquisitively. She backed away farther, trying to smile harmlessly, then continued on the path.

She collided with someone. She opened her mouth to apologize, then threw her hands in front of her face and managed to suppress a scream. A bald, wizened figure stood there, clad only in a dirty robe. It was no more than five feet tall and its greenish-yellow skin was stretched tightly over bones. It stared at her blankly and she recognized the violet eyes of the Aadae. Its robe hung open, revealing a penis no thicker than a finger. The blue stone on its forehead seemed to wink at her.

One of the males.
She felt nauseated. The figure tried to reach for her, his lips drawing back across his teeth in an imitation of a smile. She moved back, trying to ward him off with her arms.

Then another Aada was beside him, holding his arm. She recognized Neir-let. The Aada was whispering to the male in her own language. The male, still grinning, sat down.

“He frightens you?” Neir-let asked. Suzanne sighed with relief. “He is harmless.”

“I didn’t know … I haven’t seen a male Aada before.”

Neir-let looked puzzled for a second, then nodded. “Male. We have few, enough for children. We always have few. This one is old and no longer wise.” The male was drooling and picking at his toenails. “Soon his mind will join the others above. In his travels, he may see our home again.” Neir-let sat down with the male, her arm across his shoulders.

“Do you miss your home?” Suzanne said impulsively. She was suddenly curious about the Aadae, who as far as she knew rarely talked to anyone. Neir-let seemed to sigh.

“To you, Suzanne, I will talk,” said the alien. She was shocked, not realizing that Neir-let knew her name. “You have a gift, I know. You have brushed those above once in the dawn. Do you remember? You fled from us.”

Suzanne struggled with her memories, then recalled the morning she had seen the Aadae seated on the highway, staring into the sun. She nodded silently.

“Yes, I miss my home. I will not see it again as I am. But I could not stay there knowing that other minds would die. Your world is much like ours, but the small differences bring me sadness. Yet I could live here with my daughters and be pleased.” Neir-let paused. Suzanne sat down near her, for once unafraid. “But we must leave here and the home of my daughters must be the ship.”

Leave here. If we wait long enough …
“Why are you here?” she asked.

“So that you will not die.”

“You’ve killed so many of us, though. Why?”

Tears glistened in the alien’s eyes. “If we had not, others would have joined them. Then all of you would die. It is a painful thing, Suzanne.” Neir-let patted the male alien on the head and trilled to him. He nestled against her. Suzanne was at peace, strangely, not wanting to leave Neir-let’s side. The fog had lifted slightly.
I should get back to the dome
, she thought, unwilling to move.

From the corner of her eye, she saw a shape leave the doorway of the dome where the Aadae slept. She turned to face it.
Joel.
The shape disappeared in the fog and she could not be sure.

Neir-let was still singing to the male Aada. Suzanne rose and began to thread her way through the maze of paths. She could see more clearly now and soon managed to find her own dome.

She hurried inside and up the stairway. In her room, Joel lay on his mat, seemingly asleep. Yet his breathing was shallow and his hair and face were dotted with small beads of moisture. She wanted to speak to him, to question him. She clamped her lips shut and curled up on her own mat, nursing her pain and her fear.

She had to talk to Gabe. She had to tell him what Neir-let had said.

She went looking for him as soon as she was through with her work for the day. The bright sunlight had burned away the fog of that morning and by noon the weather was hot and humid. A group of people, among them Oscar Harrison and Asenath Berry, had gathered in front of the dome when she left, speaking to each other in low, angry tones. One man reached out and grabbed her as she passed and she tried to pull away.

“Let her go,” said Oscar. The man released her. Suzanne retreated, then looked back. Everyone in the area seemed to be leaving the vicinity as if expecting trouble. Joel was still asleep upstairs and for a moment she wondered if she should go back and wake him up.
Better to let him sleep; he’ll miss the trouble.
She went on to Gabe’s dome.

Gabe was not in his room. One of his roommates, a frail-looking Chinese man named Soong, looked up as she entered.

“Do you know where Gabe is?” she asked him. “I have to talk to him.” She felt impatient, on edge. “It’s pretty important.”

Mr. Soong smiled. “He is being entertained by a young lady, I believe, a few domes down. He has been away all night. You can find him there, but I do not know if he wishes to be disturbed.”

The old windbag.
“Which dome?”