"Because you followed orders, even though your mission appeared useless. It was your 'wild goose chase' that made our victory possible. "You see, only the blue mist of Mars protects its surface from the hard rays of the sun. Without it, we'd have no more protection than a naked man in space. The reason we're in for a bad sunburn every year is that the blue mist dissipates partially at every Earth-sun conjunction." "But what would The Egg have to do with that?" asked Jonner. "The Egg amplifies the effect of magnetic fields, the way a lens concentrates light rays," answered Sir Stanrich. "It's the Earth's magnetic field, not that of Mars, that interferes with the blue mist every time the Earth passes between Mars and the sun. And to amplify Earth's magnetic field, we had to place The Egg directly between Mars and Earth during the Earth-sun conjunction--and you put it there when you got the Egg into an Earthward orbit on schedule." "But, Sir Stanrich, I've been sunburned a dozen times at these conjunctions...." "Not like this. When the blue mist was stripped away completely this time, everyone on the surface was affected. Marscorp's troops were put out of action as an effective fighting force when they received severe burns over most of their bodies and were afflicted with acute conjunctivitis so badly they were half blinded. That's why we abandoned Charax and Regina and pulled all our people to the Isidis base while the conjunction was under way, we were all protected from the sun ... underground!" They had reached the center of the city. Above the old Syrtis Major Hotel, which had served as Marscorp's supreme headquarters, the flag of the Charax Rebels was fluttering in the breeze from the city's air circulators. Marscorp was beaten. Mars was free. End of Project Gutenberg's A Case of Sunburn, by Charles L. Fontenay