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His agility saved him. He hung on fiercely, dangling at arm’s length against the sheer stone face. Below him, Gurion’s form plunged downward, striking the jagged cliffs at several spots.

Evazan glanced down to see the body make the final crash into a surging wave. He then turned his attention to ensuring his own safety, but he quickly found this was not so easy a task. His arms alone weren’t strong enough to pull him up. His scrabbling feet could find no holds in the smooth stone.

A noise came from above him. He looked up as the toes of boots appeared over the edge just inches from his face. His gaze moved on up the body to see that it was Ponda Baba who stood there, staring down at him.

“P-Ponda!” he gasped out, at first with great relief. But a new realization swiftly turned relief to surprise. “But … how! You here? The—the transfer … it didn’t work?”

“Oh, it worked, Doctor,” came a voice no longer like that of his old friend. “But it worked backward.”

“Backward?” he echoed.

“That’s right. And so you’ve condemned me to the loathsome form of one of my people’s lowest breed of scum.” The Aqualish lifted the hairy arm that marked him as a social pariah on his own planet. “You’ve destroyed my life as a senator, Doctor. So now I am going to destroy yours!”

The mechanical arm lifted. In its jointed fingers was clutched the thermal detonator. The metal thumb rested on the triggering button.

“No!” cried Evazan. “No, no, wait! You can’t!”

“Good-bye, Doc!” the new Ponda Baba said simply.

He pushed the button, dropped the bomb, turned, and strode away.

“No, no!” Evazan screamed out as the bomb’s timer ticked down.

With the strength of desperation he hauled himself up. His eyes cleared the edge. He glimpsed the ticking bomb, and just beyond it the Meduza’s form.

“Rover!” he shouted to it. “Hellllp meeee!”

Far above, a small shuttle skimmed down through the atmosphere, flashing high across the waves. The rocky isle with the towering castle lay straight ahead. Two men of Gurion’s lean build and swarthy complexion sat at the controls.

“There it is,” one said. He looked to his companion. “Get ready to hover above the roof, while I get out the boarding—”

A great flash of light from ahead interrupted him. An explosion enveloped the entire castle top.

Both men stared with astonishment as the upper half of the structure disintegrated in the initial blast. A cloud of fine debris billowed up while larger pieces showered out and down. Then the lower half of the shattered castle collapsed inward, becoming in seconds a vast rubble pile.

“Poor Gurion,” the first man said, looking down at the broken remains as they soared overhead.

“That blast probably attracted Andoan security,” said the other. “We’d better get well away from here.”

He turned the ship, heading upward again.

“At least Gurion got his revenge on that lunatic Evazan,” the first man said as they left the ruins behind …

Far below, halfway down one rugged side of the castle’s high cliffs, a large bile-green mound of goo lay motionless on a ledge. From its splattered edges a thick yellow oil ran, dripping in greasy, fat globules over the edge.

Then the gellike mass heaved and quivered, bulging upward. Out of the largest lump of its center an arm suddenly shot forth, followed by another, and then by the head of Dr. Evazan. He took a great shuddering breath as he broke the surface, like a swimmer who’d been long under the sea.

With some difficulty he extricated himself from the blob that had once been his pet. Though the loyal creature had saved him by cushioning his fall, their hard impact together had squashed the Meduza’s life from it.

“Thanks, Rover,” he said, plucking a last clinging streamer of the slime off his shirt. He bent and patted the ruptured mass. “Sorry, boy.”

He looked upward to the blasted castle.

“Backward,” he said regretfully. “Damn!” Then he shrugged. “Oh, well. Maybe I’ll get it right next time.”

And with that he began the long climb downward to the sea.

Drawing the Maps