jonner, a free man again, rode into mars city in a groundcar with sir stanrich o'kellin. stein and aron had remained at marsport for the time being. marsport was completely in the hands of the rebels, and efforts were being made to get through by radio to phobos to give the marscorp forces there a surrender ultimatum.
"what's happened to the mars city dome?" asked jonner in astonishment as they approached the city. the once-transparent dome was cracked and badly discolored.
"plan blue," answered sir stanrich with a smile.
"look, sir, how about telling me what happened?" said jonner. "when we got captured in the middle of our wild goose chase with marscorp's egg, our troops had been driven into the ground at the isidis base and we got the impression it was only a matter of time before that fell. then the radio goes out for a few days and we land here to find mars city overrun with our troops."
"why," said sir stanrich, his mustache quirking mischievously, "we counter-attacked. we came out of the base, defeated the marscorp army there, drove across the desert to mars city and took it. task forces are out now, taking over the other cities. that's all there is to it."
"simple!" snorted jonner. "except that they outnumbered us four or five to one, and probably outgunned us more than that."
"science wins wars now; my boy, not numbers and guns."
they had entered the mars city airlock and were driving down the broad avenue of the canals. rebel soldiers swarmed through the city. the few men and women they saw in marscorp uniforms staggered around, groping blindly, their faces and arms fiery red and peeling from sunburn.
"you'll get a medal out of it, too," commented sir stanrich.
"why? why me?"
"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.
