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He suddenly knew that. He knew why it was so. He could have explained it completely and precisely. But he didn’t know how he knew. The items that added together were themselves so self evident that he didn’t even wonder how he knew them. They had to be so!

Cathy said muffledly, her face against his shoulder, “But we won’t be alive in a couple of weeks, Lon. We can’t live long past daybreak.”

He did not answer. There were more ideas coming into his mind. He didn’t know where they came from. But again they were such self evident, unquestionable facts that he did not wonder about them. He simply paid tense, desperately concentrated attention as they formed themselves.

“We—may live,” he said shakily. “There’s an ionosphere up at the top of the atmosphere here, just like there is on Earth. It’s made by the sunlight ionizing the thin air. The—stronger sunlight will multiply the ionization. There’ll be an—actually conducting layer of air.... Yes.... The air will become a conductor, up there.” He wet his lips. “If I make a—gadget to—short-circuit that conducting layer to the ground here.... When radiation photons penetrate a transparent conductor—but there aren’t any transparent conductors—the photons will—follow the three-finger rule....