Behind the Eyes of Dreamers Read Online Free PDF Page A

even know what the fuckers are for , you just sit there putting them together, you think it’s really important, don’t you, just like that dumb job at the warehouse you used to have.”
    “It’s not that, Joel. They’re going to find out you’re not doing your share, and God knows what they’ll do then.”
    “I could give a shit.” She could hear him turn over on his mat and knew the conversation was finished. Suzanne had heard rumors about a group of men and a few women who would meet late at night to discuss what to do about the Aadae. She knew nothing more and was afraid to know even that much. She remembered the burned bodies on the highway and decided it was best simply to go about her business and wait.
    She was pretty sure that Oscar Harrison was in the group and that Felice knew about it, although she doubted that the protective Oscar would allow his wife to go to the meetings. It wouldn’t be hard for her to get involved if she wanted, but she preferred to wait and see if anything happened. She could act then.
    “It’s a perfectly good job, Joel; why are you always putting it down?” She put down her beer and glared at him across the kitchen table.
    “ It’s a dead end and you know it. That’s all life is for you, getting by. You could do more and you know it, but it’s easier this way—you don’t have to think or try. It’s even easier to put up with me; it’s better than being alone. At least I know what I am; you don’t even look at yourself. ”
    I was practical, at least. Not that it mattered now. There had been no more money for her training in music, so she had left school and taken the job in the warehouse office, telling herself it was only temporary, she could still have her voice lessons, go to the local opera company’s rehearsals at night. But she stopped going to the rehearsals—she was usually too tired—and then she had stopped going to the voice lessons. I wouldn’t have been much good anyway. Occasionally she sang for her friends at parties, smiling when they told her she should become a professional; it’s just a hobby. Then Gabe had rushed over one day to tell her that the opera was holding auditions, they needed a new soprano, she would be perfect, the pay wasn’t much, but she could at least quit that office job. And she promised to go to the audition, but by then she was out of training, her voice roughened by cigarettes, so she didn’t go after all. There was no point to it. She had just gotten a raise; no sense in throwing it away.
    It doesn’t matter. The Aadae were here and had no use for singers, nor for office workers. Her past was a meaningless memory, her possible future in that other world only a shadow of the wishes that had once crossed her mind. Better that she had had no great ambitions when the Aadae came; she would not have been able to stand it. Her dreams had already died.
    It’s just as well.
     
     
    The orange-haired alien was named Neir-let. Felice had mentioned that to her a couple of days before. Neir-let and her dark-haired companion were the Aadae who had instructed them in how to put together the metal objects which were now beginning to clutter the large downstairs room of the dome. Neir-let wore a blue gem on her forehead, a stone seemingly embedded in her skin, as did all the other Aadae. Suzanne hadn’t even noticed this until Oscar had pointed it out; most of the aliens’ foreheads were covered by their untidy hair. The gem was tiny, smaller than a Hindu’s caste mark; it glittered, and Suzanne shivered involuntarily.
    Neir-let had become more fluent in English, although no one could be sure about how she had learned it. Her companion never said anything. Neir-let had just demonstrated how to attach a silver globe to the apparatus they had been building, then she gave them a cartful of silver globes, several of which went rolling out of the cart over the floor, stopping their travels under the food slots. The metal objects on the