Eight minutes after detonation, the radiation front reached the innermost human habitat in the system: the world called Moscow. The neutrino flux was high enough to deliver a rapidly lethal radiation dose even after traveling right through the planet. The nightside fluoresced, glowing dimly against the unbearably bright background. The gamma pulse, close behind it, flashed the daytime atmosphere to plasma and slammed it into the already melting rock. Supersonic tornadoes rippled around the daylight terminator, scouring the surface down to bedrock.