"Against the weight of all our knowledge, do you think you could
become our master that easily?"
Hanson had his own doubts. There were counter-magical methods against
nearly all magic, and the book he had read had been only an elementary
one. But he nodded. "I think with your name I could get my hands on your
hearts, even if you did your worst. It doesn't matter. I claim my
reward."
"And you shall have it. The word of Sather Karf is good," the old man
told him. "But there was no mention of when you would be given those
names. You said that when the computer was finished you would _wait_ for
my true name, and I promised that you should have it when the time came,
but not what the time would be. So you will wait, or the agreement shall
be broken by you, not by me. When you are dying or otherwise beyond
power over us, you shall have the names, Dave Hanson. No, hear me!"
He lifted his hand in a brief gesture and Hanson felt a thickness over
his lips that made speech impossible.
"We have discussed your reward, and you shall indeed have it," Sather
Karf went on. "Exactly as I promised it to you. I agreed to find ways to
return you to your own world intact, and you shall be returned."
For a moment, the thickness seemed to relax, and Hanson choked a few
words out through it. "What's the world of a mandrake-man, Sather Karf?
A mandrake swamp?"
"For a mandrake-man, yes.
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