The radi-light flared with a dazzling, gleaming whiteness on the stone, bringing with it a light such as had never penetrated the always-present clouds that veiled Venus. Klon stood proudly to one side, drinking in the hissing applause and hisses of surprise and awe that greeted his showing of the globe of light shadow. He knew then that he had won the coveted leadership of his nation.
"This," he hissed over the uproar of his people, "is the—"
Klon gasped in sudden intolerable agony, fiery fingers of pain tearing at every bit of his body, cutting off his speech almost at its very inception. He crumpled slowly to the ground, dimly conscious that other cries were echoing his own.
He died then, hearing the agonized hisses of his friends, his last sight of life being that of the globe that burned with a white-hot light on the top of the central stone.
And slowly, but with increasing speed, his people died too. They fell like tiny trees before a huge storm, falling even as they tried to find a reason for the death around them. Like a wave eddying out from the central stone, death cut its merciless sweep.
And within seconds there was no life in the clearing. Within seconds an entire nation, every intelligent being on Venus, was dead of the unleashed light rays, the like of which had never penetrated the miles of fog that lay between earth and the sun.
The radi-light gleamed brightly on the central stone, shedding radiance over the last beings of intelligence ever to be on Venus—perhaps forever!