"We must try," Claerten said. "And your job is enormously important."
"I know that," Jonas thought wearily.
"You have accomplished the first step," Claerten said. "Do nothing rash."
"Of course not."
"You will not accept help—"
"I will not," Jonas thought.
"Very well, then," Claerten thought. There was the ghost of another idea; Jonas caught it.
"I know perfectly well that you wouldn't have sent me if there were any other available member," he thought. "There is no need to remind me."
"I'm sorry," Claerten thought. He radiated caution, worry, patience; Jonas turned in the bed and cut off from the director with a grunt. He was tired; long-distance linkages were a drain on the body's energy, even when the person involved was easy to visualize. But Claerten had insisted on intermittent contact.
If there were such a thing as total contact, constant contact over a period of days, Jonas thought, Claerten would use me for a puppet, a veritable Punch among men; he would override me and take me over the way a traveling entertainer rules his jointed dolls.