"And how did the planet appear?" Bridget asked.
"And what does that add up to: a bright concentrated light source on which you fix your attention and a monotonous hum?"
Bridget shrugged. "A reasonable facsimile. Especially when you throw mental fatigue in with it."
"But you need a suggestion, I thought--" Grant was amazed.
"Not necessarily," she replied. "You were mentally tired, there was some self-suggestion for sleep. But simply a continued fixation of the eyes in suggestive subjects can be enough. There may be a subconscious association with previous hypnosis, or early states of mental shock. In the highly suggestive, a steady lulling noise can be sufficient in itself. And you were alone, with no one around to snap a finger under your nose. Add it up in your situation, and you blank out."
Grant slapped his forehead. "What did I look like?"
"Not any different than usual," she said, laughing. "You continued to hold the controls, but you stared vacantly and tensed quite a bit. Well, we have the complete recording on your reactions if you want to check. Naturally, you pulled off course, ended up over Mexico, gaining about fifty miles in altitude."
The others, thought Grant, rode until their oxygen gave out or dived through the atmosphere without skin-cooling, or came out of it too late and found-- He decided not to think about it.
"But I don't think I'm hypnotic," Grant protested.
"Everyone is hypnotic to a degree. Some are a great deal more than others, and these are the ones that are apparent. Impose the right conditions and a quasi-hypnotic condition could be affected on most anyone."
"But why hasn't this happened elsewhere?"
Bridget took a quick bite of fish before he could stop her. "It has. First documentation I found was in the South Pacific air war in the '40s. One-man escorting fighter planes in several cases slipped out of bomber formations they were following at night and splashed. One of the explanations at their hearings, but never investigated thoroughly, was hypnosis from the single red taillight of the bombers. In one outfit, the losses stopped when the fighters flew up front."
"Not only sharp, but good-looking, too," Grant admired, and began chewing on the other half of his French bread. Then he ceased masticating and mouthed anxiously, "You've told the general this?"