Suddenly a blue-white blaze lighted the sea for hundreds of miles, and a great fireball swallowed the atoll. In less than a second the fiery mass erupted and swelled like a monstrous spastic bubble. The blinding colors

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VIXEN 03

on its surface melted from orange to pink and finally to deep purple. The shock wave lashed across the water like a lightning bolt, flattening the rolling swells.

Then the fireball released its hold on the surface and boiled toward the sky, digesting millions of tons of coral before spitting it out in a swirling geyser of steam and rubble. The mass inflated to a diameter of five miles, and in less than a minute the inferno reached an altitude of 115,000 feet. There it hung, gradually cooling into an immense dark cloud that slowly drifted to the north.

Rongelo Island had disappeared. All that remained was a depression three hundred feet deep and two miles across. Quickly the sea rushed in and covered any trace of the gaping wound. The sun was tinted an eerie yellow-green as it stole below the horizon.

The Quick Death organism had ceased to be.