...and the ceiling flew away.

Lucas looked up in surprise at the open sky above them, and at Shannon and Steven and a couple of others whose names he didn’t know. Star sat back, neither moving nor speaking, as the men grabbed Lucas’ arms and shoulders and dragged him up and out of the time out room and into the Spiral Path gardens.

"Well what have we here?" they were saying.

"Father throws Lucas the cutest piece of tail on this island and all he does is curl up into a ball and whine ‘leave me alone’."

"Maybe he doesn’t like girls."

"Is that it? Don’t like girls, Lucas?"

"You a fag, boy?"

Up till then they had been shaking him at each word, like a terrier with a rat, not wanting to hear him speak, but they seemed to want an answer to this. He was held immobile, wrists twisted up behind his back, Shannon’s breath hot on his face.

"You know," he said evenly, "I was just talking about Tash, and how Arvid reminds me of him..."

That was the first time they hit him.

They dragged him, struggling and kicking, over to yet another of the airlocks, and forced him inside. This one looked like a storage facility; the same low level lighting, the same dome shape, but much larger than the time out room. And, except for Lucas and his attackers, quite, quite empty.

They hauled him into the centre of a small, tight circle of faces spitting hate.

"Hey chiton. Nice place, huh?"

A punch to the solar plexus folded him over.

"Good soundproofing. Yell all you want, chiton, no-one will hear you here."

Lucas was too busy fighting for breath to yell; and besides, who would he call to for help? But they knocked him around the circle, and spun him around between them, and hit him a few times till he fell down, and then they were on him, kicking, punching, spitting. While he was on his feet he fought as well as he could, but once they had him down all he could do was curl up into a ball and try to protect his head.

They rolled him onto his face and stretched his arms wide, one of them holding each wrist, one of them on his back, a deadweight, grinding his face into the dirt.

"Get his legs."

Another one grabbed each of his ankles and, in spite of his bucking and kicking, wrenched his legs apart and weighed them down. And then Shannon, kneeling between his parted thighs, ran a hand up his leg, up under his chiton, flipping up the cloth.

"Yes," he sneered, "Lucas doesn’t like girls, right? Look at that sweet piece of ass."

Lucas’ mind screamed no, but he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of begging. But oh god no, don’t...

He could feel Shannon’s breath on the back of his neck, his weight covered him, hands fumbling under his chiton, a finger stabbing into him.

"Oh yes, he’s a fag, aren’t you Lucas? This is what you want, right? Want us all to take turns, don’t you."

One of them did a funny voice, bouncing Lucas’ head off the dirt by a handful of his hair, speaking for him as if he were a ventriloquist’s doll.

"‘Oh, yes please brother, take me take me I’m yours’ huh? Oh yes he wants it brother. Go for it."

"Shannon? Brother, what are you thinking?"

Arvid?

Arvid.

They let go of Lucas and stood up, as if distancing themselves from what they had been about to do. Lucas pulled down the skirt of his chiton, rubbed the back of his hands over his eyes, and then - carefully, gingerly, breathing heavily - got to his feet.

Arvid looked at the attackers, a level steady gaze that had each of them dropping his eyes to the floor, ashamed.

"Leave us now," he said simply, "and think about what you were about to do. I will speak with each of you later."

And then he held out his arms to Lucas.

The others left and Lucas and Arvid were alone. Arvid still held his arms wide. Lucas needed to be hugged - if it had been Bridger, or Tony, or Dagwood, or even his mother, he wouldn’t have hesitated. But he wrapped his arms around himself, and kept his distance from Arvid, and said,

"You just want me to be grateful. You set the whole thing up, so that you could ‘rescue’ me and make me feel grateful to you. I’m right, aren’t I?"

"Is it so important to you to be right, Lucas?" Arvid said gently.

"Well then, that’s what we will do. We will sort out what is right, and what is true; together. I will stay here with you until we come to the truth."

* * *

"It’s been an hour, Lucas. They aren’t coming."

"Excuse me?"

"That was your Word, wasn’t it? ‘Tash’? Your signal? You said it inside the time out room; but perhaps they didn’t hear, because of the dome. You were wondering what they were made of, weren’t you. Well don’t worry. Your signal would have got through. We have nothing to hide. But you said it again, outside. There was no way that that wouldn’t have gone through. You have to face it Lucas. They have left you."

"I don’t know what you’re talking about..."

Arvid struck him across the face.

"Never lie to me Lucas. Never. That was a lie. Wasn’t it?"

"I... yes"

"Good boy. So. They promised you the seaQuest would wait for you; and they lied. They promised you they would come at your word; and they lied. It has all been a lie, Lucas. All the things they told you about me, about the Path. All lies."

Lucas had no answer. Oh, he knew what Arvid was trying to do. To take the things that he believed in - Bridger, and seaQuest, and his friends. His father. The UEO. All of it. - to take them, and turn them around inside his head so that he didn’t believe in them any more. Until he didn’t believe in anything except Arvid, and what Arvid told him. But knowing it didn’t make it easier. SeaQuest was gone. And he’d used his word and they didn’t come. He wanted to say something, fend off Arvid’s words, with something. But there was nothing there. He was ashamed of the tears that threatened to start up, and Arvid was still there, still pressing for an answer.

* * *

He was a river. Arvid, a river. And he was a rock, standing in the river, being pounded by the tide. And he had to change. If he stayed a rock he would be worn away. The more he resisted, the more Arvid would wear him down. He had to be a net, full of holes, let the river wash through him, unresisting.

And then, maybe, just maybe, the river would wash through him and not see that there was still a ‘him’ there at all...

* * *

"Give it to me, Lucas."

How long? Hours? Days? Years? Did the man never sleep?

"Come. You know you must."

He reached into his mouth, found the place, unscrewed the tooth and held it out to Arvid. Arvid looked at it curiously, and then smashed it on the ground under his heel. They both looked at the circuitry dispassionately a moment and then Arvid smiled at Lucas who, surprised into it, smiled back.

"There. Doesn’t that feel better? The poison is gone, you are free of them. Now you can really begin."

* * *

"Damn!"

"What is it?"

"We’ve lost the signal, sir. Lucas had to give it up and Arvid must have smashed it."

"Ah well. We knew this might happen. It’s up to Lucas now."

Bridger thought his head was going to explode with rage.

"Lawrence, what are you doing? If I’m hearing this right, Lucas used his safeword. Why aren’t you bringing him out?"

"Because Arvid hasn’t done anything to him yet! Lucas was sent in to get the evidence we need to bring Arvid down. If I bring him out now we have nothing. Lucas was locked up in a room with a beautiful, willing, available girl. Any court in any country would laugh us out of the dock. He was bullied a little, but nothing really happened, because Arvid rescued him. It isn’t enough, Nathan. We’ll have to let Arvid’s processing run its course and hope to bring Lucas out of it at the other end."

"But he used his safeword..."

"But he’s only a boy. He over-reacted. It’s my judgement."

"Lawrence, he went into this voluntarily on the understanding if it got too much for him he would use his safeword and you’d get him out. He used his safeword and you’re betraying him."

"I don’t see it like that Nathan. And, in case I have to remind you again, the UEO put me in charge of this operation, and all the resources at my disposal include you and your boat. I’m the person with the most at stake in this, remember."

"I can think of someone with more."

But Wolenczak still didn’t get it.

"Lucas? Your son?"

"Lucas will be fine. I know what’s best for him."

[end of #8A]

Arvid paced around him, untiring, hypnotic, reasonable.

Reasonable? Where had that come from?

Reasonable.

"How could a group of people lie to a boy who trusted them?"

He had no answer. What answer could there be?

"Let us think about what is involved. We know they are wrong, of course, but let us think about what they believe. They believe you are in danger here, from me and from the people of the Path. And yet, believing that, they calmly send you into the danger that they perceive, while they stay calmly in the safety of their armoured independence, on the seaQuest. They believe you are in danger, but they abandon you to that danger by leaving. They promise you they will not do so, but they break their promise. How would you describe someone who does that?"

"There must have been a reason..."

"Ah. Yes. I see. A reason for them to leave you. Well then, what might that reason be Lucas?"

"SeaQuest is the UEO flagship. There might have been... a crisis, somewhere. A border dispute. Another vessel in distress."

"But we monitor the news. The sea lanes. The world is at peace Lucas. And no vessels have foundered while you have been here."

"But that might not be true. I have no way of verifying what you say."

"Is the evidence of your own eyes not verification Lucas? They told you they would not leave. I showed you the harbour, and they were not there."

* * *

"I have good news."

Lonnie looked up as the cell door opened.

"We have been able to confirm your identity. You’re free to go. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience."

Tony and Dagwood were in the corridor, Dagwood silent and concerned, Tony silent and furious. Lonnie ushered them out of the Seeker Colony Police Station before the cops could make up any more excuses to hold them. Bridger’s orders had been to wait in the harbour town for any news of Lucas, just in case he was able to leave the Spiral Path compound for long enough to know the sub had been forced to leave without him. But almost as soon as seaQuest had submerged the three of them had been picked up on bogus vagrancy charges and it had taken them a night in the cells to persuade the authorities they were exactly what they said they were, UEO officers on furlough.

She only hoped Lucas hadn’t tried to contact the sub while they had been incommunicado.

* * *

Arvid wasn’t going to let him sleep until he’d broken him. That much was clear. He held on to the thought, exhausted, as the room swayed around him and tiny points of fire danced along his skin. He was a net, not a rock, and the river would flow through him, never seeing he was there.

He wasn’t sure whether he’d actually been beaten or whether he had dreamed it. Arvid’s voice had stopped and, by the time Lucas’ exhausted brain had processed that information, his slow pan around the space had shown him only the multicoloured patches of his attackers, standing in a circle around him, silent, arms folded. He had looked for Arvid, felt the desolation of being alone, and then they were on him again.

He thought - he truly thought - they had held him down again, and he had wondered whether he was having a flashback or whether, this time, they were really going to do it. But the assault had been physical, not sexual. They had held him down like before, spreadagled, and pulled up his chiton like before. But, this time, they were eerily silent while they beat him with a broad leather belt until he was bruised and sore. He must have passed out briefly, because the next thing he knew was Arvid, gently shaking his shoulder to wake him, and the attackers were gone.

"Lucas? Do not sleep. Stay awake with me, and let us wrestle with your demons together."

"Where are they?"

"Your demons?"

"No! Shannon, and Steven, and the others. They were here, again. They did this..."

He pulled down the neck of his chiton to show Arvid the bruises on his back but the man’s hands moved gently over his skin and there was no pain.

"I see nothing there, son. Perhaps it was a dream."

It was no dream, he thought. The pain in his back and buttocks and legs told him so. He had no way of seeing his own back, and Arvid told him there were no marks so he had no way of proving he was right. Another level of messing with his mind, he realised. They were all in it together, Arvid, Star, Shannon, his father; no, not him. There was a reason why his father hadn’t come for him, and why Bridger had left him. He shelved that for later. He could only find that out by getting out, and he wasn’t going to get out now, or soon. Or ever? No, don’t go there. He was a net, and the river would flow through him and never see he was there, and some day the net would be taken out of the river...

He was so thirsty. Arvid called to one of the brothers to bring him some of the red juice. They brought in a covered jug, and two glasses, and Lucas watched, warily, as Arvid drank from the same batch. The drug, whatever it was, must have been in the glass, because that was the last coherent thought he had had for some time.

It seemed to him that the walls of the room started to melt and reform in different colours and patterns but, while he stood in the centre of the room, entranced by the change, Arvid vanished again. This time Shannon and Steven were seven feet tall and multicoloured as their patches. Their behaviour was just the same, though. He fought like a wildcat this time, determined if he couldn’t avoid being hurt, at least to have some marks that he could see, and prove whether or not he was dreaming this. And if it was only a dream, well, what did it matter? So he clawed at their eyes and kicked at their groins and used his elbows and knees as well as his fists. But none of that saved him from being held down again, from being beaten again, from the tears and the pain and the humiliation.

And when it was over it was just like before, only in technicolour. How could he be sure? Arvid said it hadn’t happened. He was going to resist what Arvid said, he seemed to remember, though he couldn’t, any more, quite remember why.

"We should talk more about why you are here."

Lucas waited a long moment for the universe to coalesce around the multicoloured swirls that came out of Arvid’s mouth as he spoke. This was an important question, he seemed to think, but what was important about it he didn’t understand. It was purple, mainly, but the word "why" was a hot pink that curled through and through the other words in a spiral pathway that reminded him of something...

"... why you are here."

Oh yes, they were words, not colours, and Arvid needed him to answer them. He groped, slowly, towards the place in his head where he kept words, and found some that seemed to match.

"Because... you made me... the court... my mother..."

But his words were green, and grey, and pale, and they flowed along the floor like smoke, not changing Arvid’s colours at all.

"Why are you here, Lucas?"

"I have to be."

"Why, Lucas?"

"Just... because."

"Why would that be?"

"I don’t know."

"Yes you do. Tell me, Lucas."

"I don’t... know... anything..."

Arvid’s words flowed around him in vivid colours that charged the very air around them, while everything he said evaporated like smoke. But what did Arvid want? What did he have to say?

Arvid’s words filled the room and, while so far he had been moving his head to avoid them, there were getting to be so many of them that he was going to have to breathe them in in a moment. They hung in the air, strong, vivid, solid patterns that coloured the air he breathed. His own words drifted, grey wraiths, along the ground like dry ice. He laughed, and let go, and inhaled Arvid’s words, feeling the spice of the purple words at the back of his throat and his lungs.

"I’m here because you want me to be here!"

It was true! He had got it at last. Arvid wanted him here. He was home.

[end of #9A]

They let him sleep, and let the drugs pass out of his system, and at the moment when they calculated he was clean he was woken.

Hands woke him. Hands clutching at him, hands touching him, hands lifting him up, up, up... There was no time to savour the sensations of being rested, and in his right mind. He was lifted, and carried along on a carpet of hands, hundreds of them, so that they could toss him along as if he weighed a featherweight.

For the first second he felt a stab of fear but he saw Arvid smiling up at him from the tapestry of faces and relaxed, as he was passed from hand to hand overhead, up and out of the room, outside into the gardens.

Sun blinded him, brightness assailed him. It was like his first arrival at the Spiral Path all over again; brightness, colour, warmth, friendliness. But now he wasn’t an outsider looking in, apart, detached. He was inside the spiral, at the heart of the mystery, and their hands touched every inch of him, lifting him, carrying, soothing, knowing, accepting him.

He was on his back, arms outstretched, their hands firm and strong beneath him, holding him up and carrying him forwards. He had no control over the motion but it was, on the whole, not an unpleasant sensation. It felt as if the crowd moving him had a mind of its own, not the will of one person but the will of the carpet of faces, a hive mind that drew him on and drew him in and accepted him as one of it.

The touch of their hands was strangely impersonal at the same time that it was deeply personal, inside his defences. His muscles, which had been clenched for so long in rejection, defiance, negation, gradually relaxed under the friendly violation of a thousand touches. He was boneless, helpless, unafraid. He was slid onwards, his chiton slid backwards, and he was stripped naked, spreadeagled by friendly hands, and whirled around over the heads of the crowd, defenceless, cherished, open, safe.

Finally they reached their destination and the hands that held him gently lowered him to the ground; into the lap of his Mother.

"Lucas," she said, "at last."

They handed her clothes for him and she helped him dress in a set of spiral path patches.

"I made them for you. You were too busy wrestling with your demons to do it yourself. It’s allowed, just this once."

They were, he saw, based on a foundation of his seaQuest clothes, now ripped and patched with a million other colours. He found he couldn’t speak. But he smiled at his mother, and at his friends, and his eyes were shining.

* * *

"I spoke to Tim. We’re all officially on furlough and we’re to stay away from the boat. Lucas was in contact with his father for a while but he was cut off and now his father is saying seaQuest isn’t to interfere. Luckily we don’t officially know any of that so it sounds as though we’re on our own for a while. How did you get on?"

Dagwood looked up at her, calm and placid as usual. It was Tony who answered, a tightly wound ball of anger and aggression.

"They won’t even let me join them! I thought these loonies took anyone. OK, they won’t let me visit Lucas because I’m an ex-con, but I thought these religious types went in for forgiveness and change. I said I wanted to join them, change my life and stuff, and they laughed in my face."

Lonnie frowned.

"I don’t like it. OK, tomorrow I’ll try. We’re in civvies now, I won’t mention seaQuest, I won’t mention visiting Lucas, I’ll just be someone who ran out of cash on Seeker Colony and is looking for a place to stay."

" You don’t think they’ll connect you with seaQuest? You got a police record here now."

"I think they’ve been on to us from the start. But you know we have to try Tony."

"What about me?"

"You’re too conspicuous, Dag. And, besides, we need you here in case Lucas comes back."

"Lucas isn’t coming back. We should go to him."

"I wish we could, Dag."

* * *

A hoe. His hands held a hoe. It was heavy and warm to the touch, the wood polished by the loving grip of a hundred hands. At the end of the wooden shaft there was a small metal head, like a miniature spade. There were small green weeds growing in between the rows of corn and it was the job of those hoeing to root them out. The world had shrunk to the feel of the wood in his hands, the sun on his back and arms, and the tiny green shoots he rooted out. He was happy.

He focused on what he was doing, on the eternal moment, the now. Here and now, he used a hoe, rooted out the weeds. There were twelve brothers and sisters, two prayer groups, side by side working along the rows. He could feel the companionable presence of Honey and Bob, and Thea and Shannon, his friends. And Star. She was next to him, strong hands working away like his own, rooting out the weeds, like Arvid worked with them every day to root out the thoughts that tried to insert themselves in his head, undermine the crop of righteousness that was growing there, tall and strong and proud like the corn they protected with their hoes. This was happiness. This was peace. He sensed his partner looking at him and glanced up for a second.

"Focus, Lucas," she smiled.

"Focus, Star," he smiled back.

They worked on, happy, at peace.

* * *

"I agree. I was hoping for more, as you know. But the boy hadn’t been hurt and we had nothing we could use in court. The drugs they gave him were all prescription pharmaceuticals and they’ve got at least three tame doctors in house who could have covered them with a prescription. My belief is that Lucas just had a panic attack when they threw a girl at him; I forget how young he actually is. Anyway, for better or worse he tried to abort, I decided against it, and we were cut off."

"That’s all very well Laurence but what about now? What do you know and what is seaQuest planning?"

"Lucas is still inside the Spiral Path headquarters with his mother. I can’t see that there’s anything seaQuest can do here. I’m afraid I think we should just abort the whole mission. Lucas will come to his senses; he’s a smart boy. And there are CultRescue offices on the island, if he needs outside help."

"So you’re OK with this? If I order Bridger to leave, bring you back home? He’s your son, after all."

"Yea, well, at the moment he’s his mother’s son, I’m afraid. Yes, give the order. I agree we have to leave him. There’s nothing else to be done."

* * *

Arvid looked into the monitor and checked out the group room. Things were progressing well. He had brought the Lucas group out of the novices house and installed them in one of the rooms inside the Path house itself. They lost the advantage of complete control of the environment but, once the subject had broken, it was as well to re-establish their circadian rhythms in any event. They were sleeping now, tumbled together like puppies in the one giant bed. He could see Star curled around Lucas on the one side and Honey at the other. Bob’s possessive arm was around all three of them and Shannon’s leg hooked across them. The boy had reacted like all the others, in the end. It never failed to amaze Arvid that one day you can use a bruiser like Shannon to break their will, and yet the next day they’ll be sleeping in the same bed as their attacker, believing that they’re loved and that love excuses anything. The boy genuinely seemed to believe now; of course having his mother on hand to work the love bombing helped a lot. Arvid looked more closely at the monitors and found himself admiring the curve of Thea’s shoulder. She was a good girl, almost as good as Star. It was time to move them on to the next plane. He looked lovingly at Lucas. He was going to be worth the effort, this one. He couldn’t wait.

[end of #10A]

Peaceful. Calm. Peaceful. Quiet. Peaceful. Prayerful. Peaceful. Whole. But, overwhelmingly, peaceful.

The hoe was in his hands and he kept his eyes focused, looking down at the rows of corn. Focus on the now, the eternal moment. Here, now, the eternal moment was green fuzz growing in brown earth. Amazing, that green fuzz in brown earth could be so... so transcendent. No, he censored himself quickly, he was thinking....

What you mustn’t do is think. What Arvid says is true, and right, and holy, and any thoughts which deviate from Arvid’s words are wrong. But it is subtler than that. Independent thought is wrong in itself, a way of the world luring you away from the Path by making you think that your thoughts have validity in themselves, when of course their only validity comes from how closely they match Arvid’s teachings. Logic whispered in the back of his head that there were flaws in that argument but he ruthlessly ignored them, and then noticed the thought process and smiled at himself for his obedience. And then noticed the thought process involved in that and suppressed it, too; and then noticed that suppression and rewarded it with more approval, his thoughts spiralling back to Arvid’s words, and peace.

Focus on the now. Unresisting, letting it wash through him like the river washes through the meshes of a net. A net? Where had that come from? He was a rivulet in the stream, a ganglion in the hive mind, one of the many, all conforming their thoughts to Arvid’s so that the Pathhouse was one giant engine of righteousness...

Someone passed along the rows of workers with a pannier of juice and he drank deeply from the dipper that was offered to him, welcoming the way it was always easier to focus on Arvid’s thoughts, to quiet the deviant thoughts, still the incessant chatter of the unrighteous mind, after a drink.

Days passed, day on peaceful day. There was hard manual labour in the fields so that unaccustomed muscles were always burning with tiredness, a wholesome tiredness that had him sleeping the second his head touched the pillow. So much to do, so early to rise, so late to bed. Tiredness was good, the objective evidence of active striving for righteousness. But the harder labour was in the mind, the constant exercise of an active will to suppress the deviant thoughts that tended to stray from Arvid’s path. But his control was, Arvid said, superb and he basked in the approval of his mother and his friends and Arvid, his spiritual father.

And Star... nothing he had ever experienced had prepared him for Star, for love. Star and Honey and Thea. Arvid said that it was a sin to turn away love, but he still found he was rapt in wonder at the idea that Star and Honey and Thea, all of them, loved him. Him, Lucas, nothing. And in the mornings, when Arvid said the time was right, they would join, in love, all of them. Lucas with Star, Honey with Bob, Thea with Shannon, all together in the one bed, friendly hands, friendly limbs, entwined in love. And sometimes Arvid would command that they shared their love in different combinations and so he would be held in Thea’s warm embrace, in Honey’s friendly touch.

The other thing... that was a harder spiritual exercise. But Arvid said it was a sin to turn away love. Arvid said this was love. Arvid said to turn away from this would be a sin.

Sometimes, although his head said this was what Arvid commanded, and his heart said this was love, his body said no and he would find that, although he consented to it happening, still he couldn’t stop the tears from falling. But Arvid said it was commonplace and that the tears were the body’s way of embracing the difference. And Arvid said that Bob loved him, and that it was a sin to turn away love. And Arvid said that Shannon loved him, and that it was a sin to turn away love.

And Lucas knew that Arvid loved him. And, if it was a sin to turn away love, it was much more of a sin to turn away Arvid’s love. He knew that favoured disciples slept in Arvid’s bed: he knew his own mother was the most favoured. But when would he be favoured? And did he long for it, as he knew he should, or did the evil that still lurked in his heart dread the moment...

* * *

Case conference.

"I haven’t detected any signs that he’s faking it. I think we should take him at face value and move on."

Arvid looked at Star affectionately. The girl was good; Lucas was the sixth newbie she had broken in for him and he would, on the whole, tend to trust her judgement. But his instincts still twitched when it came to the boy.

"Thank you sister. Shannon? What do you think?"

"It’s always a tightrope at this stage, but I don’t think he’s falling. He’s blissed out on the love bombing most of the time but, even though he hates having me or Bob do him, he still tries his best - he tries to join in, he tries to talk himself into enjoying it. I’d say that’s a good sign. He’s censoring his own thoughts, self-reinforcing. I’m with Star. He’s yours."

"Steven?"

"I’ve been monitoring the group most of the time except when you’re out in the fields and I have to agree. I think any more intervention would do more harm than good. He’s on the path now, but if you do any more it risks becoming overkill and turning him back. But I think your instincts say otherwise?"

"Yes. I don’t know why, but there’s something about the boy that makes me feel he’s still capable of independent thought. If we’re going to let him loose in the UEO computer system I want to be absolutely certain he’s doing my will and not sending ‘help help help’ messages. I’m going to do the miracle on him. I’ll prepare Cynthia. The rest of you get the equipment ready. We’ll do him the next time he shows signs of losing focus."

"Yes Brother"

"Yes Brother"

"Yes Brother"

* * *

Bored. Tired. Bored. Hungry. Bored. Frustrated. Bored. Anxious. Bored. Lonely. Oh, and had he mentioned bored?

The hoe was in his hands again and he kept his head bent, looking down at the rows of corn. Focus on the now, the eternal moment. Fine. But when all your eternal moments start to look like green fuzz growing in brown dirt the bloom of the transcendent starts to fade pretty damn fast, in his opinion. But if they saw he was thinking....

After they break you they fill your head with what they want you to think. Lucas, the programmer, naturally thought of it in computer metaphors. They had re-booted him, loaded a new programme, but if they spotted that the old programmes were still running...

No. Focus on the now. Unresisting, letting it wash through him like the river washes through the meshes of a net. He was the net and Arvid was the river, and his task was to let Arvid flow through him until Arvid stopped noticing that there was a "him" still there at all.

But it was hard.

Boring, too.

Wake up, their hands on him, all of them piled around him, Star and Honey and Thea. He knew, by now, that they were all in on it, that Star was Arvid’s reward to him for breaking but she was also one of his jailers, watching him. So he smiled when she touched him, and anyway... she touched him, god, everywhere.... how could there be anything like this, how could something so private happen so publicly, all of them watching him, smiling, approving, sharing the moment as Star rode him. He didn’t know what it was supposed to be like but he knew it wasn’t supposed to be like this, all of them together, him with Star and Bob with Honey and Shannon with Thea, and then...

Well, then there would be other hands on him, and Thea would be caressing him while Honey smiled up at him. And sometimes...

Arvid said it was a sin to turn away love. Arvid said this was love. Arvid said to turn away from this would be a sin.

At least this was one time he was allowed to cry. Sometimes, if he gave them what they wanted, if his act was good enough that they thought he was with them, he was even allowed to fall asleep again afterwards.

Oh god; to sleep. He couldn’t remember the sensation of having had enough sleep. They woke him at dawn and worked him till after dark and he was bone weary every moment. But it wasn’t enough. There was no grist for the mill, nothing for his mind to work on, once he had chewed up the thin gruel of self-censorship, drugs, and hormones that constituted Arvid’s reality. So he was bored. And when he was bored, he started thinking.

Independent thought. The gravest sin in Arvid’s world. To Lucas, the greatest rush of all.

[end of #11A]

"I’m in!" she thought exultantly, careful to keep the joy out of her face as she stepped onto the bus. She had carefully checked her clothes and her purse to make sure there was nothing in them that gave away her connection to seaQuest, just in case, by some miracle, the Path people hadn’t made the connection between her and Lucas, between her and Tony. Not that it mattered, in the end. Lucas had disappeared down this pipeline and it was increasingly looking as if the only way to make contact with him would be for someone to follow him down it. She sat back in her seat, looking out of the window, trying to relax into the experience.

And looked up, as one of the best looking guys she had seen in years approached her, his patched and tattered clothes clinging to a buff form, a dazzling toothpaste-ad smile on his face.

"Hi," he said, "I’m Blair. Welcome to the Path. Blessed be."

* * *

Quite often, perhaps one day in three, he was taken out of the fields while the others were having their communal meal in the shady depths of the novices house, and sent to eat with his mother, and with Arvid.

At first, the sensation of sitting with her, the touch of her hand ruffling his hair, the long-forgotten but familiar scent of her, had been enough. He had basked in her approval as he talked with Arvid, absorbed Arvid’s teachings, surrendered his will to Arvid’s in exchange for her love.

...and then common sense had kicked in. He had survived this long without her approval, without her love. While there was some kind of click, some sense of rightness, about hearing her call his name, on its own it wasn’t enough. There were conditions attached to her approval, strings on her love. While he was Arvid’s disciple, he would be his mother’s son at last. And now that he was bored with Arvid’s world and ready to think again for himself...

"Lucas?" Arvid said sharply.

He disentangled himself from his mother’s arm around his neck and stood up.

"I’m sorry Father, I was thinking."

"Thinking?"

"I mean I wasn’t concentrating, so my thoughts wandered."

"Lucas!"

"I know, I know," he grinned, "Undisciplined thought is the portal of sin. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again."

Arvid smiled at him and his mother pulled him back into her arms.

"Yes it will. But I’m glad that you recognise it when it does happen. And strive against it. Constant striving, Lucas. It’s the only way."

"Yes Father."

* * *

"Wake up sleepyhead."

"Mmm?"

"Lucas. Time to wake up. You’re late. Breakfast is nearly over."

"Star?"

"Lucas! Wake up! Now!"

Why couldn’t he wake up? He shook his head and tried to sit up...

"Star?" He couldn’t keep the fear out of his voice.

"What?" impatiently. How could she not see?

"Star. Help me."

"Help you what? Come on Lucas. This isn’t funny any more. Get up."

"I can’t."

"What?"

"I can’t move."

"Why not?"

He closed his eyes firmly, and then opened them again. No. He still couldn’t move. There was a broad strap across his chest, holding him down, and there were constrictions at his wrists and ankles.

"Because of these-" He tried to move his hands, show her the bonds. Was she blind?

"Star, come on. This isn’t funny either. Let me up."

Her hand on his forehead, feeling for fever.

"Lucas what is it? Are you unwell?"

"No, I’m tied down. C’mon Star. Is this some kind of joke? We’re a bit late for hazing the newbie, aren’t we? Untie me, dammit!"

But her face was clear, her eyes wide open, as she looked him straight in the eye and said

"But... Lucas, there’s nothing holding you."

* * *

Slowly, surely, it turned into a circus. Star swore nothing stopped him moving, but Lucas held on to the evidence of his own eyes. Shannon was fetched to adjudicate. He put his hands on Lucas’ shoulders, looked him in the eye, and said "Lucas, this must be the work of your demon. I swear to you, nothing I can see is preventing you from moving. Nothing ties you down except your own conscience." He caressed Lucas’ shoulder, ran his hand under Lucas’ arm, and then down the length of his arm to the bonds on his wrist.

Shannon’s hand passed under Lucas’ wrist as if there was nothing there, as if the broad black strap that Lucas could see buckled around his wrist was, indeed, nothing more than a figment of his imagination. And smiled.

"Now rise, brother."

Lucas closed his eyes and tried to believe it, tried to believe that he was free to move as he wished.

Sat up, a fraction of an inch.

And then thumped back down onto the mattress, pinioned at wrist and ankles and chest.

* * *

"No, I’m not mad, I’m tied up."

There were perhaps twenty people in the room now, all of them swearing that they could see nothing that prevented Lucas from moving, that there were no straps, no buckles, nothing. A demon - Lucas’ demon - was universally agreed to be the most likely culprit.

"Hey!"

Lucas’ voice cut through the general hubbub of agreement.

"Yes brother?"

"I have an idea."

"What is it, Lucas?"

"Humour me, OK? None of you sees any straps, right? But I do. And they’re stopping me from getting up. So humour me by pretending to untie me from my invisible bonds and maybe together we can persuade my subconscious to let me up?"

"Whatever you say Lucas." Star smiled down at him. Her hands moved to his chest, unbuckled an imaginary strap.

"Down an inch or so Star."

She smiled, and humoured him, and moved.

"No, a little to the left."

Was she humouring him, or deliberately missing the right place?

"Maybe you could close your eyes? Since you can’t see it? And just follow my directions?"

"Why Lucas!" Her voice held the promise of those mornings they had shared love, made his suggestion into a love game, set him blushing in front of the watching crowd. And her fingers still unbuckled imaginary bonds inches from the actual buckle constricting his chest.

He lay back, consciously relaxed his muscles. One more try.

"Star, would you try the one on my wrist instead? At least we’re all sure whereabouts my wrist is."

She smiled, and this time her nimble fingers went straight to the strap, although the "buckle" she unfastened was still an imaginary one and not the one that Lucas could see.

"It’s to the left. No, further. Stop there. Back a fraction. More...no, no stop. That’s it! Unfasten that."

She hit it. She actually hit it! Her fingers were unfastening the actual buckle on the actual strap on his actual wrist.

And, as the buckle came unfastened, he saw the cheat. The buckle was decorative, not practical, and even with it unfastened the strap was still firm and solid around his wrist, leading down to a slit in the mattress and fastened somewhere below him, out of sight. Tears of frustration threatened to leak out of his eyes.

"Did I do it, Lucas? Are you untied now?"

Her face was so clear, her eyes so empty of guile.

"Have we conquered your demon."

No we haven’t, Star, he thought bitterly. Because it’s you. You’re the demon.

[end of #12A... but there will be more...]