Ships were lost during these dark voyages, and said to have had their fate decided by supernatural forces. But that was just the rambling of superstition. The reality was that a man might be trapped in his own imagination and find that his subconscious self held the keys to the escape. Now what would be a good trap to use against someone's mind? For the subject wouldn't know what happened to them, but would imagine they'd died and enter a kind of limbo, if not in a different world. Of course, it would be very dangerous to entrap people into not knowing whether they were dead or alive. But even if only some of the subjects experienced this 'limbo', it might bring the idea home to their families, that they were still alive. Perhaps they'd stop tormenting them? Then there was the question of how to do it... The answer might be that people can be lured into their own traps. There were those who thought that the human mind could be modified and trained. Some would argue that a powerful enough 'shock' could change a person's thoughts. It might be possible, but certainly it would take a lot of work. Even if we did set up some machine that could have an effect like that on the brain, then that might cause problems, like the person's head being permanently damaged, or it might take too long to have any effect, or it might take too long to reverse the process. You would end up with a person who had learnt to believe he was a different person from who he really was. In the days before electricity there were some people who believed that it was possible to direct electricity to people's brains and make them permanently psychotic. It was claimed that if one could do that it would be possible to control people. It was claimed that if someone believed they were possessed by a demon, they could be controlled if the right person knew how to use the correct voltage and frequency. It was possible, if you wanted to be really crazy. There were various ways in which this could be done, ranging from using a tingler, or a Tinkertoy, in order to make them go mad by inducing a seizure. If they lost control, some people were said to go into a permanent coma. The thing that would really drive a person insane was if their brain remained unsuppressed. This was the idea behind the electro-convulsive therapy that had been used on some insane people. It would all depend how you used the electricity, and whether it made your subject go mad, or simply gave them a seizure. Even so, there would be no certainty, because you'd have to put a machine into your subject's brain and no one knew if the machine could be switched off. Most scientists doubted that a machine could make someone go mad, because you'd need so much voltage and the effect would be so quick. Others said it was obvious that it was possible, but that it was technically not possible. 'I'll have a go at it,' said Heryn. 'If I fail, then I'll build one.' ## 3 In those early days I didn't realise that Heryn was insane. At the end of each day he came down and talked to me and joked. 'I've done it. I've made someone go mad.' And he laughed. His next experiment, which he did with others, was to make them act in ways they wouldn't normally. He thought that the way to turn people into psychopaths was to make them believe they had no feelings. So he had various groups of children play sadistic games to show how good they felt, like the man with the machine gun who shot a bunch of women. He did things like have some boys beat up a few girls and then make a group of adults laugh and tease them about it. He had the adults force the boys to beat up other boys, and then another group of boys – each pretending that he was the one they were beating up. I remember those days, and being with the group of people who were studying to become scientists or psychologists. Some of them took the job very seriously, and were determined to become experts in their field. Others were just doing it because they could be part of the new world that Heryn and the others were trying to create. The ones who came from the upper class were always more interested in doing experiments to show how cruel they could be. I watched one of them, whose face I had seen on the street, go for a man who had been shouting abuse at some of the children. They were shouting about making them wash their hands, and so on. He asked him how he knew what they'd been doing. I looked over and saw the man blushing, but refusing to admit anything, and the scientist took a tape-recorder out of his pocket and started to play it back to the man. The sounds went on and on, and in the end the scientist ended it, saying 'and that is what he thinks about us'. One of the people who had come from the streets said to Heryn, 'There are people in the city, you know, that like us, I mean those from the slums.' 'I know,' said Heryn. 'But what about the people who go to the upper classes?' 'How can they like us?' 'Some of them do.' 'They don't know.' 'They do. They know they have nothing, and they want to take it. Even if they feel sorry for the people that have too much, they're using them.' 'I know,' said the man. 'I remember the day you left. I wanted to come with you, but I had to stay. I saw what you did. I saw you and the others. You were like people on another planet.' 'You said that. Everyone was telling me the same thing. You believed them. You saw us as monsters.' 'No, I'm sorry. It's not like that. It's like... You... You can make me believe anything. I just believe that you really wanted to help people. You wanted to make a difference. I know I'm talking rubbish, but you must have meant it.' 'Yes,' said Heryn, 'I did mean it, and so did the others. I know that all it seems is that there's no point, but it's just not true. We are going to change everything.' 'You believe that?' 'I know that people used to think that the world was beyond change. I'm not talking about the upper classes, but ordinary people. They had a system and they would change it, but the idea of some kind of progress kept them from achieving that. And we've destroyed that system. Nothing is beyond change, and yet the system never changes. So we can destroy it.' 'You must know,' said the man, 'that when you have destroyed that system, you will have created a world of chaos, of suffering. And you will make everyone suffer. Every person.' 'Why are you so sure?' 'I can see that in your eyes. You don't think like we do. I can see it.' Heryn said nothing and turned and looked at me. Then he came back to the man. 'I can feel you,' he said. 'We're all like that, now. You'd be the same.' 'I don't think I'd make others feel like I do, that I know. And if you knew, why would you tell me what you felt?' 'Because you're special. Because you're so full of hate. You're here to help us. You're a special person. I can see it.' 'Let's not talk about it,' said Heryn. But we talked about it, and it became more and more obvious that Heryn was just a lunatic. He was like someone who could do anything. He said that he could make it rain by pressing a button. When I challenged him, he said, 'I can make you see anything I want you to see.' He could make things happen, even in his thoughts. He could do things that others could not. This last one was the most surprising of all to me. It was true that the others in his group were always seeing things in the way he wanted them to see them. They always believed what he said about how a man could be the same man, inside as he was outside. One day, while we were all eating and drinking a special meal, which Heryn and some of the others were going to eat later, the conversation turned to how a man could control his own mind. 'I'm not saying that you can,' said Heryn. 'But you could learn how.' I started to smile, and everyone could see I was wondering what was going on. 'You could even do it while you were asleep,' said Heryn. 'You could make yourself feel things. You can do anything.' I looked round the table at the people sitting there with me. Most of them knew I was dreaming, but they were too worried about what I'd tell the others, or that I would go back to where I'd come from. But there was one man there, whose face I recognised. It was the man who had told me about how he could make it rain, and then he had gone off into another room to have an electric shock. He had been part of one of Heryn's experiments, but what had happened to