Behind the Eyes of Dreamers Read Online Free PDF

floor were entwined in metallic tubing; the blocks and cylinders they had started out with were already hidden. The silver globes were to be attached to some of the loose ends of tubing.
    Suzanne, sitting with Felice and a red-headed woman named Asenath Berry at one of the tables, reached for her bowl of mush. She was losing weight. Suzanne had already been thin before the Aadae came. On the diet of mush, she estimated, from the looseness of her clothing, that she had lost another ten pounds. A scarecrow. Her brown hair, always unruly, stood out around her head like a nimbus; there was no way to straighten it here.
    No one made any move toward the objects they were supposed to be putting together. They had all learned that Neir-let was fairly easy-going and didn’t seem to care what they did as long as the work was completed by the evening. Neir-let was sitting on the floor near the doorway, picking what looked like small insects out of her hair. Her companion leaned against the wall, scratching her crotch.
    Suddenly Oscar stood up and walked over to Neir-let. Suzanne glanced at Felice. The chatter in the large room died down. No one had dared to approach an alien directly up to now. Asenath Berry poked Suzanne in the ribs. “What the hell is he up to?” the redhead asked. Suzanne shrugged. Asenath had lost little weight on the mush diet; her round, braless breasts were an edifice under her sleeveless blue top and Suzanne wondered if Asenath had used silicone. Her long tanned legs were set off by her white shorts. How she kept them shaved was a mystery. Felice had said that Asenath was a prostitute, that she had come out of the city with a closetful of clothes and cosmetics carried by three of her most faithful customers. Asenath shared her room with a lean black man named Warren, who, like Joel, usually slept late. “A mack,” Felice had told her, sneering at the word. What do I care. Suzanne had met Asenath one night in the hallway. The redhead had taken one look at her frail figure and pulled out two cans of beef stew hidden in her purse. “You need them more than me, honey.” She had hurried back to her room to share them with Joel, who opened them with his knife, and they had eaten them slowly, relishing each bite. Since then, she found it difficult not to be friendly to Asenath, although at the same time she was a bit frightened of her.
    “I just want to ask a question,” Oscar said to Neir-let. The room was silent. Neir-let looked up at Oscar and smiled. “I just want to know what that blue thing in your head is.”
    The alien was still smiling. “Through it I am with those above,” she replied, and shrugged as if that were self-explanatory.
    “The others of your kind?” Oscar said slowly.
    “No, except …” Neir-let paused. “I have no words.” She smiled at Oscar and raised her hands, palms up. Oscar nodded and returned to Felice’s side, looking thoughtful.
    A few people got up and began to attach the globes to some of the metal objects strewn across the floor. “I think they still have spaceships overhead,” Oscar said to Felice, “and she means they can contact them with those blue stones. That’s all it could mean. At any sign of trouble, they could wipe us all out.” He clenched his fists. Asenath was smiling at a burly man seated at the next table. Suzanne ate her mush, licking it off her fingers, forcing herself. Asenath stood up, motioned to the burly man, and left the room with him. The Aadae were paying no attention.
    Somebody should do something. She finished the mush and looked around. Everyone was devoting full attention either to the breakfast mush or to the metal objects. Neir-let and her friend had moved outside and were staring up at the sky. Suzanne’s arms seemed to freeze on the table near her empty bowl. She was unable to move, eyes fixed on her fingertips. Thoughts were chasing each other through her mind; she could grasp none of them. A heavy weight was pushing her