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“I’m not after bounty,” Gurion shot back. “My family name is Silizzar. Sound familiar?”

Evazan blanched at the name. “I—I may have had a-a patient or two—” he stammered.

Gurion cut him off. “You treated my whole family. For a stomach disorder caused by a poison you gave them as medicine! You gutted them one by one like so many fish. Seven people! None of them survived. No, I don’t want money for you. This is purely for revenge!”

Several flights higher they reached a small door that opened onto a flat area of the roof. A brisk wind from the sea tugged sharply at their clothes as they came out. The distant lightning flickered eerily on the scene, and the deep growling of the far thunder made a constant, ominous background sound.

Gurion directed Evazan around the roof’s edge, close to the spot where his backpack comlink was secured.

“Just stand there like stone,” Gurion warned. He lifted the bomb. “Remember, if I push this button, we’ve both only got a few seconds to live. I’d rather take you back to stand trial for all the other beings you’ve murdered. But I won’t hesitate to finish it right here!”

“I’m a statue,” Evazan readily agreed.

Gurion fetched his backpack and crouched beside it to take out the comlink’s headset. He kept an eye on the doctor as he spoke into the mouthpiece.

“Mother, it’s Gurion. Do you still copy me?”

“Still here, my friend. What’s happened?”

“I’ve got our baby here, alive. I’m up on the roof. Can you come get us?”

“On our way!” the voice said jubilantly. “Mother out.”

Out of the corner of one eye, Evazan saw the door onto the roof push open. One bulb-tipped stalk poked cautiously out around it, sensing the air ahead.

“There’ll be a shuttle here for us in a few minutes,” said Gurion as he put his comlink headset away.

The doctor took a couple of casual steps around him to get Gurion’s back to the door.

“You’ve really got to listen to me,” Evazan said pleadingly. “I’ve got a secret. Right here. An invention. A very big thing. Too valuable for anyone to turn down.”

“Not for me,” the other said flatly, his hard gaze fixed unwaveringly on his foe.

The shining mass of Rover squeezed through the door. The creature began to slither forward slowly, noiselessly. Flickering lightning glinted from its gelatinous form.

“But with it I can make you live forever,” the doctor argued on. “Real immortality. Everybody wants that.”

“Do you actually think giving me more lifetimes can make up for all the lives you stole?” Gurion said in disbelief. “You’re even more demented than I thought.”

Rover was now only meters behind the crouching man. The creature began to hump up higher, its stalks shifting forward to strike out.

In the tiny mirrors of Evazan’s eyes Gurion saw the Meduza’s twin reflections as a brighter lightning flare gleamed from its surface. He sprang upright, wheeling around to see the thing nearly on him.

Rover struck just as he jumped back away from it. Only a single bulb’s tip managed to graze Gurion’s knee with a sharp crackle of power.

The man cried out at the stinging pain and staggered. The arm holding the bomb dropped down.

Evazan leaped instantly for the arm. His two hands clenched tight on Gurion’s wrist and he shook hard. The untriggered detonator came loose and bounced away across the flat roof, coming to rest before the door.

With his captor disarmed, Evazan tried to break away to let Rover finish things. But Gurion grappled tight with him, his hands going for the doctor’s throat.

“I’ll kill you with my bare hands!” he snarled.

Evazan stumbled backward as he fought wildly to break loose. Gurion hung on with a strength born of his rage.

The back of the doctor’s foot hit the roof’s edge. Desperately he swung about, dragging Gurion off balance and out into space. The man fell.

Gurion’s own weight tore his hands free from the doctor’s throat. But the last downward jerk overbalanced Evazan also.

For a moment the doctor teetered on the brink, flailing out with his arms for balance. When that failed, he twisted his body violently