And their father would patiently explain about the evil of cities and civilization and of other people and she would listen but Sherry could see that she really didn't hear.

But most dangerous, she was beginning to wonder about other men. And why there were none around. Or any people. Their father had seen to their education. He had instructed them well in the way's of civilized society. He didn't want them to feel like they were prisoners here. He wanted it to be their choice. He wanted them to realize that there was only evil and pain and suffering beyond the safety of the Eden he had created for them in the mountain wilderness.

Where else could one breathe clean air, catch fish in an unpolluted lake, fish without chemicals, fish from water you can swim in. These questions and hundreds more he would patiently confront Carrie with, but she was still unconvinced.

It saddened Sherry, because she knew that at the final point, their father would never permit them to leave. He had learned to need them. To depend on them. They would sign his death warrant should they leave. Sherry knew that. She had almost, in her own way, made peace with the fact. It was a beautiful place to live. And it was so easy, so simple, so undemanding an existence…

She heard him coming down the hall again, his gait a little less steady.

When he came into the room, she could tell by the slightly out-of-focus stare in his eyes that he had taken the drug. She had no idea what drug. Once, he'd confessed that it was some kind of extract from a mushroom, varied according to his own special formula. He claimed to have bacteria in petri dishes working overtime to produce the stuff. Sometimes she worried about him, worried that maybe he was taking too much of it.

But the poor dear, it was the only real recreation that he enjoyed. And it seemed to be the only way he could arouse himself…

"Come to me my dear," he said in the characteristically thick voice of his drug induced euphoria.