Behind the Eyes of Dreamers and Other Short Novels — Pamela Sargent

In an untamed garden, a woman discovers the price of freedom

Aniya is a perfect creature. Using the power of the Net, she has banished all of her painful memories, allowing herself to live in a state of perfect contentment on a far-future Earth. In order to have companions, she creates two eidolons -- living beings imprinted with all of Aniya's thoughts, feelings, and desires. Of the two creatures, Orielna is happy to live in her creator's shadow, but Josef is not. When the pain inside him becomes overwhelming, he commits a murder and flees into the tangle of the Garden, a place where death has not been conquered. To rescue him, Orielna follows him to the Garden and discovers that behind its walls lie impossible dangers -- and unknown joys.
 
In this bewitching collection, Pamela Sargent explores what becomes of humanity when all its pains are stripped away.