“Foolhardy,” said Ewen, but MacLeod, still with that openness, knew that the young doctor was only cursing his own neglect. He said, ‘Why? The fruits were good, or we’d be sick now.”
Heather said, hesitantly, “I can’t help feeling it was something to do with the weather. Some difference.”
“A psychedelic wind,” jeered Ewen, “a ghostly wind that drove us all temporarily insane!”
“Stranger things have happened,” Heather said, and artfully maneuvered another spoonful of soup into Judy’s slack mouth. The older woman blinked dazedly and said, “Heather? How did I get here?”
“We brought you, love. You’re all right now”
“Marco–I saw Marco–”
“He’s dead,” Ewen said gently, “he ran into the woods when we all went mad; I never saw him. He must have strained his heart I’d warned him not even to sit up.”
“It was his heart, then? You’re sure?”
“As sure as I can be without autopsy, yes,” Ewen said.
He swallowed the last of his soup. His head was clearing, but the guilt still lay on him; he knew he would never be wholly free of it. “Look, we’ve got to compare notes, while it’s still fresh in our minds. There must be some one common factor, something we all did. Ate or drank–”
“Or breathed,” Heather said. “It had to be something in the air, Ewen. Only the three of us ate the fruits. You didn’t eat anything, did you, Judy?”
“Yes, some greyish stuff on the edge of a tree–”
“But we didn’t touch that,” Ewen said, “only MacLeod. We three ate the fruits, but neither Marco nor Judy did. MacLeod ate some of the grey fungus but none of us did. Judy was smelling the flowers and MacLeod was handling them, but neither Heather nor I did, until afterward. The three of us were lying in the grass–” he saw Heather’s face turn pink, but went on steadily, “and both of us were making love to her, and all three of us were hallucinating. If Marco got up and ran into the woods I can only assume that he must have been hallucinating too. How did it begin with you, Judy?”
She only shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I only know–the flowers were brighter, the sky seemed–seemed to break up like rainbows. Rainbows and prisms. Then I heard singing, it must have been birds, but I’m not sure. I went where the shadows were, and they were all purple, lilac-purple and blue. Then he came…
“Marco?”
She shook her head. “No. He was very tall, and had silver hair…”
Ewen said pityingly, “Judy, you were hallucinating. I thought Heather was made out of flowers.”
“The four moons–I could see them even though the sky was bright,” Judy said. “He didn’t say anything but I could hear him thinking.”
MacLeod said, “We all seem to have had that delusion. If it’s a delusion.”
“It’s sure to be,” Ewen said. “We’ve found no trace of any other form of intelligent life here. Forget it, Judy;” he added gently, “sleep. When we all get back to the ship–well, there will have to be some form of inquiry.”
Dereliction, neglect of duty is the least it will be. Can I plead temporary insanity?
He watched Heather settle Judy down into her sleeping bag. When the older woman finally slept he said weary, “We ought to bury Marco. I hate to do it without an autopsy, but the only alternative is to carry him back to the ship.”
MacLeod said, “We’re going to look awfully damned foolish going back and claiming we all went mad at once.” He did not look at Heather and Ewen as he added, rather sheepishly, “I feel lice a ghastly fool–group sex never has been my kick–”
Heather said firmly, “We’ll all have to forgive each other, and forget about it. It just happened, that’s all. And for all we know it happened to them too-” she stopped, struck with a horrifying thought. “Imagine that sort of thing happening to two hundred people…”
“It doesn’t bear thinking about,” MacLeod said with a shudder.
Ewen said that mass insanity was nothing new. “Whole villages. The dancing madness in the middle ages. And attacks of ergotism–from spoiled rye made into bread.”