arm
reassuringly. There was a rising mutter of shock and anger from the
others, but he lifted his voice over it. "And the secret names of all
those present. That was also part of the promised reward."

"And do you think you could use the names, Dave Hanson?" Sather Karf
asked. "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. But not for you." There was something like
amusement in the old man's voice. "I never said you were a mandrake-man.
That was told you by Ser Perth who knew no better. No, Dave Hanson, you
were too important to us for that. Mandrake-men are always less than
true men, and we needed your best. You were conjured atom by atom, id
and ka and soul, from your world. Even the soul may be brought over
when enough masters of magic work together and you were our greatest
conjuration. Even then, we almost failed. But you're no mandrake-man."

A load of sickness seemed to leave Hanson's mind. He had never fully
realized how much the shame of what he thought himself to be had weighed
on him. Then his mind adjusted to the new facts, dismissing his past
worries.

"I promised you that we wou