Claerten transmitted the entire picture in one sudden blow: the chance
that Jonas would not be killed immediately, but would be discovered; the
chance that the Inquisitor would get from him the secret of the
Brotherhood--
"That's impossible," Jonas said.
Claerten sounded resigned. "Nothing's impossible," he said. "And if the
secret is let out--why, the Brotherhood is finished. Finished before
it's barely started. Because you can read a man's mind doesn't mean you
can defeat him, Jonas."
"But you know what he's going to do--"
"And if he's got you in a wooden house and he's going to burn it down,
what good does your knowledge do you?"
"But you can transmit false thoughts--"
"And confuse him," Claerten said. "Fine. Fine. If you've ever met the
man before. And suppose you haven't? Then you can't transmit a thing to
him; you're trapped in the house, remember, and the fire's started. What
good's your telepathy?"
"But--"
"It's a sense," Claerten said. "Like any other sense. But it isn't magic
any more than your eyes are magic. They're ... given by God, if you
like; they grow, they develop. So the ability to read minds, to transmit
thought is given by God. No one knows why or how. Fifteen of us have
developed it; fifteen who are members of the Brotherhood. But there are
others--"
"Of course," Jonas thought impatiently. "I know all that."
"You know a great deal," Claerten said, "which I sometimes find it
necessary to bring to your attention."
"I've done all right," Jonas thought sullenly.
Claerten agreed. "Of course you have," he thought, "but you're not the
most careful of men; and great care is needed. The Brotherhood must
grow. This new sense is of great value; perhaps we can learn to teach it
to others in time, though we have had little success with that. But at
the least we can maintain our numbers, pass the gift on to our
children--"
"If it is possible," Jonas said.
"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.
And that would be a fine thing for a hero, wouldn't it?
He grimaced in the darkness. Constant contact was simply impossible; any
reaching out used energy, and linking up for a long period simply burned
the body up like a long starvation; it was as bad as a penance.
Jonas was thankful for that.
And for the rest--well, he thought resignedly, what was a hero without a
quest? And what was a quest without someone to set it?
But that the someone had to be Claerten, with his caution and his
old-woman worry--
Jonas sighed and set about the business of falling asleep.
* * * * *
The days passed slowly, with great boredom. Jonas made contact twice
with Claerten, who told him over and over to wait, to do nothing: "The
next move is coming soon; do nothing to hurry it. You can only upset the
natural course of events."
"Which is unwise," Jonas thought bitterly, "and risky, and very probably
impious as well."
"As for the piety," Claerten thought, "I leave that to the priests and
the women. But wisdom and caution are my task, Jonas, as they must be
yours."
"I--"
"You are a hero, out on an adventure," Claerten thought witheringly.
"But set your course with sense, travel it with caution; you will the
more certainly arrive."
"Philosophy for a dull plodder," Jonas thought.
"Philosophy for one of the Brotherhood," Claerten thought back. "We are
tiny as yet; we have no force. You can add to that force, add greatly;
but you must be wise."
"I must be slow, you mean."
"I mean what I have told you," Claerten thought. "And--one more thing,
Jonas."
"Yes?"
"The daughter," Claerten thought. "I have seen her in your mind. Ignore
the wench. Is she worth what your task is worth?"
"I never--"
"Then my caution is unnecessary," Claerten thought. "But, in the
unlikely case that she might tempt you to folly--remember it."
Jonas, who disliked irony, sighed and cut off.
That was the third night. During the days he had done the things he had
planned; he did no work with the Scharpes, but let them find him, when
they returned to the hut of an evening, reciting strange words. Once he
built a small outdoor fire and walked around it, widdershins, for
several minutes. Then he put the fire out and went inside. He wasn't
sure whether or not anyone was watching him, that time.
But sooner or later it had to happen.
And it happened, as Jonas had suspected it would, through the wife. Mrs.
Scharpe came back to the hut early one day, threw a frightened glance at
Jonas sitting in a corner doing nothing at all, and left.
He hardly needed to see into her mind to know where she was going.
And twenty minutes later two men came to the hut. They stood in the
opened doorway, Mrs. Scharpe behind them twittering like an ancient
bird, and Jonas watched them boredly. They were giants, for this part of
the world, almost six feet tall, with great hands and jaws. One had
black, coarse hair on his head and a stubble about his face; the other
was bald as an egg.
"That's him," Mrs. Scharpe said--just a trifle hesitantly. "He's the
one. He came to stay with us and we didn't know--"