Then, suddenly, he flung his left hand outward in a swirling pattern, as if he were trying to catch a dodging fly. His right hand flew upward, snatched the air. Then he rolled his head around and around on his shoulders, his mouth hanging open. Qing-jao was frightened, horrified. What was happening to her father? He had been speaking in such a fragmented, disjointed way; had he gone mad?
He repeated the action– left arm spiraling out, right hand straight up, grasping nothing; head rolling. And again. Only then did Qing-jao realize that she was seeing Father's secret ritual of purification. Like her woodgrain-tracing, this dance-of-the-hands-and-the-head must be the way he was given to hear the voice of the gods when he, in his time, was left covered with grease in a locked room.
The gods had seen his doubt, had seen him waver, so they took control of him, to discipline and purify him. Qing-jao could not have been given clearer proof of what was going on. She turned to the face above the terminal display. “See how the gods oppose you?” she said.
“I see how Congress humiliates your father,” answered Jane.
“I will send word of who you are to every world at once,” said Qing-jao.
“And if I don't let you?” said Jane.
“You can't stop me!” cried Qing-jao. “The gods will help me!” She ran from her father's room, fled to her own. But the face was already floating in the air above her own terminal.
“How will you send a message anywhere, if I choose not to let it go?” asked Jane.
“I'll find a way,” said Qing-jao. She saw that Wang-mu had run after her and now waited, breathless, for Qing-jao's instructions. “Tell Mu-pao to find one of the game computers and bring it to me. It is not to be connected to the house computer or any other.”
“Yes, Mistress,” said Wang-mu. She left quickly.
Qing-jao turned back to Jane. “Do you think you can stop me forever?”
“I think you should wait until your father decides.”
“Only because you hope that you've broken him and stolen his heart away from the gods. But you'll see– he'll come here and thank me for fulfilling all that he taught me.”
“And if he doesn't?”
“He will.”
“And if you're wrong?”
Qing-jao shouted, “Then I'll serve the man he was when he was strong and good! But you'll never break him!”
“It's Congress that broke him from his birth. I'm the one who's trying to heal him.”
Wang-mu ran back into the room. “Mu-pao will have one here in a few minutes.”
“What do you hope to do with this toy computer?” asked Jane.
“Write my report,” said Qing-jao.
“Then what will you do with it?”
“Print it out. Have it distributed as widely as possible on Path. You can't do anything to interfere with that. I won't use a computer that you can reach at any point.”
“So you'll tell everyone on Path; it changes nothing. And even if it did, do you think I can't also tell them the truth?”
“Do you think they'll believe you, a program controlled by the enemy of Congress, rather than me, one of the godspoken?”
“Yes.”
It took a moment for Qing-jao to realize that it was Wang-mu who had said yes, not Jane. She turned to her secret maid and demanded that she explain what she meant.
Wang-mu looked like a different person; there was no diffidence in her voice when she spoke. “If Demosthenes tells the people of Path that the godspoken are simply people with a genetic gift but also a genetic defect, then that means there's no more reason to let the godspoken rule over us.”
For the first time it occurred to Qing-jao that not everyone on Path was as content to follow the order established by the gods as she was. For the first time she realized that she might be utterly alone in her determination to serve the gods perfectly.
“What is the Path?” asked Jane, behind her. “First the gods, then the ancestors, then the people, then the rulers, then the self.”
“How can you dare to speak of the Path when you are trying to seduce me and my father and my secret maid away from it?”
“Imagine, just for a moment: What if everything I've said to you is true?” said Jane. “What if your affliction is caused by the designs of evil men who want to exploit you and oppress you and, with your help, exploit and oppress the whole of humanity? Because when you help Congress that's what you're doing. That can't possibly be what the gods want. What if I exist in order to help you see that Congress has lost the mandate of heaven? What if the will of the gods is for you to serve the Path in its proper order? First serve the gods, by removing from power the corrupt masters of Congress who have forfeited the mandate of heaven. Then serve your ancestors– your father– by avenging their humiliation at the hands of the tormentors who deformed you to make you slaves. Then serve the people of Path by setting them free from the superstitions and mental torments that bind them. Then serve the new, enlightened rulers who will replace Congress by offering them a world full of superior intelligences ready to counsel them, freely, willingly. And finally serve yourself by letting the best minds of Path find a cure for your need to waste half your waking life in these mindless rituals.”
Qing-jao listened to Jane's discourse with growing uncertainty. It sounded so plausible. How could Qing-jao know what the gods meant by anything? Maybe they had sent this Jane-program to liberate them. Maybe Congress was as corrupt and dangerous as Demosthenes said, and maybe it had lost the mandate of heaven.
But at the end, Qing-jao knew that these were all the lies of a seducer. For the one thing she could not doubt was the voice of the gods inside her. Hadn't she felt that awful need to be purified? Hadn't she felt the joy of successful worship when her rituals were complete? Her relationship with the gods was the most certain thing in her life; and anyone who denied it, who threatened to take it away from her, had to be not only her enemy, but the enemy of heaven.
“I'll send my report only to the godspoken,” said Qing-jao. “If the common people choose to rebel against the gods, that can't be helped; but I will serve them best by helping keep the godspoken in power here, for that way the whole world can follow the will of the gods.”
“All this is meaningless,” said Jane. “Even if all the godspoken believe what you believe, you'll never get a word of it off this world unless I want you to.”
“There are starships,” said Qing-jao.
“It will take two generations to spread your message to every world. By then Starways Congress will have fallen.”
Qing-jao was forced now to face the fact that she had been avoiding: As long as Jane controlled the ansible, she could shut down communication from Path as thoroughly as she had cut off the fleet. Even if Qing-jao arranged to have her report and recommendations transmitted continuously from every ansible on Path, Jane would see to it that the only effect would be for Path to disappear from the rest of the universe as thoroughly as the fleet had disappeared.
For a moment, filled with despair, she almost threw herself to the ground to begin a terrible ordeal of purification. I have let down the gods– surely they will require me to trace lines until I'm dead, a worthless failure in their eyes.
But when she examined her own feelings, to see what penance would be necessary, she found that none was required at all. It filled her with hope– perhaps they recognized the purity of her desire, and would forgive her for the fact that it was impossible for her to act.
Or perhaps they knew a way that she could act. What if Path did disappear from the ansibles of every other world? How would Congress make sense of it? What would people think? The disappearance of any world would provoke a response– but especially this world, if some in Congress did believe the gods' disguise for the creation of the godspoken and thought they had a terrible secret to keep. They would send a ship from the nearest world, which was only three years' travel away. What would happen then? Would Jane have to shut down all communications from the ship that rea
ched them? Then from the next world, when the ship returned? How long would it be before Jane had to shut down all the ansible connections in the Hundred Worlds herself? Three generations, she said. Perhaps that would do. The gods were in no hurry.
It wouldn't necessarily take that long for Jane's power to be destroyed, anyway. At some point it would become obvious to everyone that a hostile power had taken control of the ansibles, making ships and worlds disappear. Even without learning about Valentine and Demosthenes, even without guessing that it was a computer program, someone on every world would realize what had to be done and shut down the ansibles themselves.
“I have imagined something for you,” said Qing-jao. “Now imagine something for me. I and the other godspoken arrange to broadcast nothing but my report from every ansible on Path. You make all those ansibles fall silent at once. What does the rest of humanity see? That we have disappeared just like the Lusitania Fleet. They'll soon realize that you, or something like you, exists. The more you use your power, the more you reveal yourself to even the dimmest minds. Your threat is empty. You might as well step aside and let me send the message simply and easily now; stopping me is just another way of sending the very same message.”
“You're wrong,” said Jane. “If Path suddenly disappears from all ansibles at once, they might just as easily conclude that this world is in rebellion just like Lusitania– after all, they shut down their ansible, too. And what did Starways Congress do? They sent a fleet with the M.D. Device on it.”
“Lusitania was already in rebellion before their ansible was shut down.”
“Do you think Congress isn't watching you? Do you think they're not terrified of what might happen if the godspoken of Path ever discovered what had been done to them? If a few primitive aliens and a couple of xenologers frightened them into sending a fleet, what do you think they'll do about the mysterious disappearance of a world with so many brilliant minds who have ample reason to hate Starways Congress? How long do you think this world would survive?”
Qing-jao was filled with a sickening dread. It was always possible that this much of Jane's story was true: that there were people in Congress who were deceived by the disguise of the gods, who thought that the godspoken of Path had been created solely by genetic manipulation. And if there were such people, they might act as Jane described. What if a fleet came against Path? What if Starways Congress had ordered them to destroy the whole world without any negotiation? Then her reports would never be known, and everything would be gone. It would all be for nothing. Could that possibly be the desire of the gods? Could Starways Congress still have the mandate of heaven and yet destroy a world?
“Remember the story of I Ya, the great cook,” said Jane. “His master said one day, 'I have the greatest cook in all the world. Because of him, I have tasted every flavor known to man except the taste of human flesh.' Hearing this, I Ya went home and butchered his own son, cooked his flesh and served it to his master, so that his master would lack nothing that I Ya could give him.”
This was a terrible story. Qing-jao had heard it as a child, and it made her weep for hours. What about the son of I Ya? she had cried. And her father had said, A true servant has sons and daughters only to serve his master. For five nights she had woken up screaming from dreams in which her father roasted her alive or carved slices from her onto a plate, until at last Han Fei-tzu came to her and embraced her and said, “Don't believe it, my Gloriously Bright daughter. I am not a perfect servant. I love you too much to be truly righteous. I love you more than I love my duty. I am not I Ya. You have nothing to fear at my hands.” Only after Father said that to her could she sleep.
This program, this Jane, must have found Father's account of this in his journal, and now was using it against her. Yet even though Qing-jao knew she was being manipulated, she couldn't help but wonder if Jane might not be right.
“Are you a servant like I Ya?” asked Jane. “Will you slaughter your own world for the sake of an unworthy master like Starways Congress?”
Qing-jao could not sort out her own feelings. Where did these thoughts come from? Jane had poisoned her mind with her arguments, just as Demosthenes had done before her– if they weren't the same person all along. Their words could sound persuasive, even as they ate away at the truth.
Did Qing-jao have the right to risk the lives of all the people of Path? What if she was wrong? How could she know anything? Whether everything Jane said was true or everything she said was false, the same evidence would lie before her. Qing-jao would feel exactly as she felt now, whether it was the gods or some brain disorder causing the feeling.
Why, in all this uncertainty, didn't the gods speak to her? Why, when she needed the clarity of their voice, didn't she feel dirty and impure when she thought one way, clean and holy when she thought the other? Why were the gods leaving her unguided at this cusp of her life?
In the silence of Qing-jao's inward debate, Wang-mu's voice came as cold and harsh as the sound of metal striking metal. “It will never happen,” said Wang-mu.
Qing-jao only listened, unable even to bid Wang-mu to be still.
“What will never happen?” asked Jane.
“What you said– Starways Congress blowing up this world.”
“If you think they wouldn't do it you're even more of a fool than Qingjao thinks,” said Jane.
“Oh, I know they'd do it. Han Fei-tzu knows they'd do it– he said they were evil enough men to commit any terrible crime if it suited their purpose.”
“Then why won't it happen?”
“Because you won't let it happen,” said Wang-mu. “Since blocking off every ansible message from Path might well lead to the destruction of this world, you won't block those messages. They'll get through. Congress will be warned. You will not cause Path to be destroyed.”
“Why won't I?”
“Because you are Demosthenes,” said Wang-mu. “Because you are full of truth and compassion.”
“I am not Demosthenes,” said Jane.
The face in the terminal display wavered, then changed into the face of one of the aliens. A pequenino, its porcine snout so disturbing in its strangeness. A moment later, another face appeared, even more alien: it was a bugger, one of the nightmare creatures that had once terrified all of humanity. Even having read the Hive Queen and the Hegemon, so that she understood who the buggers were and how beautiful their civilization had been, when Qing-jao saw one face to face like this it frightened her, though she knew it was only a computer display.
“I am not human,” said Jane, “even when I choose to wear a human face. How do you know, Wang-mu, what I will and will not do? Buggers and piggies both have killed human beings without a second thought.”
“Because they didn't understand what death meant to us. You understand. You said it yourself– you don't want to die.”
“Do you think you know me, Si Wang-mu?”
“I think I know you,” said Wang-mu, “because you wouldn't have any of these troubles if you had been content to let the fleet destroy Lusitania.”
The bugger in the display was joined by the piggy, and then by the face that represented Jane herself. In silence they looked at Wang-mu, at Qing-jao, and said nothing.
* * *
“Ender,” said the voice in his ear.
Ender had been listening in silence, riding on the car that Varsam was driving. For the last hour Jane had been letting him listen in on her conversation with these people of Path, translating for him whenever they spoke in Chinese instead of Stark. Many kilometers of prairie had passed by as he listened, but he had not seen it; before his mind's eye were these people as he imagined them. Han Fei-tzu– Ender well knew that name, tied as it was to the treaty that ended his hope that a rebellion of the colony worlds would put an end to Congress, or at least turn its fleet away from Lusitania. But now Jane's existence, and perhaps the survival of Lusitania and all its peoples, hinged on what was thought and said and decided by two young girls in a bedroom on an o
bscure colony world.
Qing-jao, I know you well, thought Ender. You are such a bright one, but the light you see by comes entirely from the stories of your gods. You are like the pequenino brothers who sat and watched my stepson die, able at any time to save him by walking a few dozen steps to fetch his food with its anti-descolada agents; they weren't guilty of murder. Rather they were guilty of too much belief in a story they were told. Most people are able to hold most stories they're told in abeyance, to keep a little distance between the story and their inmost heart. But for these brothers– and for you, Qing-jao– the terrible lie has become the self-story, the tale that you must believe if you are to remain yourself. How can I blame you for wanting us all to die? You are so filled with the largeness of the gods, how can you have compassion for such small concerns as the lives of three species of raman? I know you, Qing-jao, and I expect you to behave no differently from the way you do. Perhaps someday, confronted by the consequences of your own actions, you might change, but I doubt it. Few who are captured by such a powerful story are ever able to win free of it.
But you, Wang-mu, you are owned by no story. You trust nothing but your own judgment. Jane has told me what you are, how phenomenal your mind must be, to learn so many things so quickly, to have such a deep understanding of the people around you. Why couldn't you have been just one bit wiser? Of course you had to realize that Jane could not possibly act in such a way as to cause the destruction of Path– but why couldn't you have been wise enough to say nothing, wise enough to leave Qing-jao ignorant of that fact? Why couldn't you have left just enough of the truth unspoken that Jane's life might have been spared? If a would-be murderer, his sword drawn, had come to your door demanding that you tell him the whereabouts of his innocent prey, would you tell him that his victim cowers behind your door? Or would you lie, and send him on his way? In her confusion, Qing-jao is that killer, and Jane her first victim, with the world of Lusitania waiting to be murdered afterward. Why did you have to speak, and tell her how easily she could find and kill us all?
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