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They have no true souls either, of course, but they don't know it. Ah. The short man there he's Garm. Sersa Garm, an apprentice to Ser Perth. He's to be your foreman, and he's real." She headed back to the outskirts, then turned to shout back. "Sather Karf says you may have ten days to fix the sky," she called. Her hand waved toward him in friendly good-bye. "Don't worry, Dave Hanson.
The warlocks began to close ranks, falling back to make a stand under the jutting edge of the roof, where they could protect the orrery. Bork and Ser Perth were among them, bloody but hopelessly determined. One look at Sather Karf's expression was enough to convince Hanson that Malok had cried the truth and that their work could still be undone.
"A lifetime of pleasures simple enough when that lifetime would be over before it began. What were the pleasures, Sather Karf? Having you reveal your name just before I was sent back and feeling I'd won?" He grimaced. "I reject the empty rewards of your empty promises!"
Sather, of the excellent banking firm of Drexel, Sather & Church, came to me, and called my attention to an article in Casey's paper so full of falsehood and malice, that we construed it as an effort to black-mail the banks generally.
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.
He tried to break free, but there was no escape. The old man mumbled, and the vise was gone, but something clawed at Hanson's liver. Something else rasped across his sciatic nerve. His kidneys seemed to be wrenched out of him. "You will build a computer," Sather Karf ordered. "And you will save our world!" Hanson staggered from the shock of the pain, but he was no longer unused to agony.
He has always been the Sather Karf at least ten thousand years or more. To attain the art of a Sather is the work of a score of centuries, usually." That Sather had been in sad shape, it seemed. No one had been able to revive him, though bringing the dead back to life when the body was reasonably intact was routine magic that even a sersa could perform.
Ser Perth went away, temporarily pleased with himself, and Hanson stood staring at the model. It was as good as he'd said it was and completely damning to all of his theories and hopes. No model he could make would equal it. But in spite of it and all its precise analogy to the universe around him, the sky was still falling in shattered bits! Sather Karf and Bork had come over to join Hanson.
The chant picked up again, and now the brazier flamed a dull red, showing the Sather Karf's face changing from some kind of disappointment to a businesslike steadiness. The red glow grew white in the center, and a fat, worm-like shape of flame came into being. The old man picked it up in his hand, petted it and carried it toward Dave. It flowed toward his chest.
Dave turned his head weakly. The motion set sick waves of nausea running through him, but he could see the doctor kneeling on the floor in some sort of pantomime. The words of the chant were meaningless. A hand closed over Dave's eyes, and the voice of the nurse whispered in his ear. "Shh, Dave Hanson. It's the Sather Karf, so don't interrupt. There may be a conjunction."
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