Instead, a ridiculously small metal structure appeared on the riverbank in front of them. The door opened. A man emerged. A young man--large-boned, Caucasian, but pleasant-looking anyway. He held a single glass tube in his hand.
He smiled.
Wang-mu had never seen such a smile. He looked right through her as if he owned her soul. As if he knew her, knew her better than she knew herself.
"Wang-mu," he said, gently. "Royal Mother of the West. And Fei-tzu, the great teacher of the Path."
He bowed. They bowed to him in return.
"My business here is brief," he said. He held the vial out to Master Han. "Here is the virus. As soon as I've gone--because I have no desire for genetic alteration myself, thank you--drink this down. I imagine it tastes like pus or something equally disgusting, but drink it anyway. Then make contact with as many people as possible, in your house and the town nearby. You'll have about six hours before you start feeling sick. With any luck, at the end of the second day you'll have not a single symptom left. Of anything." He grinned. "No more little air-dances for you, Master Han, eh?"
"No more servility for any of us," said Han Fei-tzu. "We're ready to release our messages at once."
"Don't spring this on anybody until you've already spread the infection for a few hours."
"Of course," said Master Han. "Your wisdom teaches me to be careful, though my heart tells me to hurry and proclaim the glorious revolution that this merciful plague will bring to us."
"Yes, very nice," said the man. Then he turned to Wang-mu. "But you don't need the virus, do you?"
"No, sir," said Wang-mu.
"Jane says you're as bright a human being as she's ever seen."
"Jane is too generous," said Wang-mu.
"No, she showed me the data." He looked her up and down. She didn't like the way his eyes took possession of her whole body in that single long glance. "You don't need to be here for the plague. In fact, you'd be better off leaving before it happens."
"Leaving?"
"What is there for you here?" asked the man. "I don't care how revolutionary it gets here, you'll still be a servant and the child of low-class parents. In a place like this, you could spend your whole life overcoming it and you'd still be nothing but a servant with a surprisingly good mind. Come with me and you'll be part of changing history. Making history."
"Come with you and do what?"
"Overthrow Congress, of course. Cut them off at the knees and send them all crawling back home. Make all the colony worlds equal members of the polity, clean out the corruption, expose all the vile secrets, and call home the Lusitania Fleet before it can commit an atrocity. Establish the rights of all ramen races. Peace and freedom."
"And you intend to do all this?"
"Not alone," he said.
She was relieved.
"I'll have you."
"To do what?"
"To write. To speak. To do whatever I need you to do."
"But I'm uneducated, sir. Master Han was only beginning to teach me."
"Who are you?" demanded Master Han. "How can you expect a modest girl like this to pick up and go with a stranger?"
"A modest girl? Who gives her body to the foreman in order to get a chance to be close to a godspoken girl who might just hire her to be a secret maid? No, Master Han, she may be putting on the attitudes of a modest girl, but that's because she's a chameleon. Changing hides whenever she thinks it'll get her something."
"I'm not a liar, sir," she said.
"No, I'm sure you sincerely become whatever it is you're pretending to be. So now I'm saying, Pretend to be a revolutionary with me. You hate the bastards who did all this to your world. To Qing-jao."
"How do you know so much about me?"
He tapped his ear. For the first time she noticed the jewel there. "Jane keeps me informed about the people I need to know."
"Jane will die soon," said Wang-mu.
"Oh, she may get semi-stupid for a while," said the man, "but die she will not. You helped save her. And in the meantime, I'll have you."
"I can't," she said. "I'm afraid."
"All right then," he said. "I offered."
He turned back to the door of his tiny craft.
"Wait," she said.
He faced her again.
"Can't you at least tell me who you are?"
"Peter Wiggin is my name," he said. "Though I imagine I'll use a false one for a while."
"Peter Wiggin," she whispered. "That's the name of the--"
"My name. I'll explain it to you later, if I feel like it. Let's just say that Andrew Wiggin sent me. Sent me off rather forcefully. I'm a man with a mission, and he figured I could only accomplish it on one of the worlds where Congress's power structures are most heavily concentrated. I was Hegemon once, Wang-mu, and I intend to have the job back, whatever the title might turn out to be when I get it. I'm going to break a lot of eggs and cause an amazing amount of trouble and turn this whole Hundred Worlds thing arse over teakettle, and I'm inviting you to help me. But I really don't give a damn whether you do or not, because even though it'd be nice to have your brains and your company, I'll do the job one way or another. So are you coming or what?"
She turned to Master Han in an agony of indecision.
"I had been hoping to teach you," said Master Han. "But if this man is going to work toward what he says he will, then with him you'll have a better chance to change the course of human history than you'd ever have here, where the virus will do our main work for us."
Wang-mu whispered to him. "Leaving you will be like losing a father."
"And if you go, I will have lost my second and last daughter."
"Don't break my heart, you two," said Peter. "I've got a faster-than-light starship here. Leaving Path with me isn't a lifetime thing, you know? If things don't work out I can always bring her back in a day or two. Fair enough?"
"You want to go, I know it," said Master Han.
"Don't you also know that I want to stay as well?"
"I know that, too," said Master Han. "But you will go."
"Yes," she said. "I will."
"May the gods watch over you, daughter Wang-mu," said Master Han.
"And may every direction be the east of sunrise to you, Father Han."
Then she stepped forward. The young man named Peter took her hand and led her into the starship. The door closed behind them. A moment later, the starship disappeared.
Master Han waited there ten minutes, meditating until he could compose his feelings. Then he opened the vial, drank its contents, and walked briskly back to the house. Old Mu-pao greeted him just inside the door. "Master Han," she said. "I didn't know where you had gone. And Wang-mu is missing, too."
"She'll be gone for a while," he said. Then he walked very close to the old servant, so that his breath would be in her face. "You have been more faithful to my house than we have ever deserved."
A look of fear came upon her face. "Master Han, you're not dismissing me, are you?"
"No," he said. "I thought that I was thanking you."
He left Mu-pao and ranged through the house. Qing-jao was not in her room. That was no surprise. She spent most of her time entertaining visitors. That would suit his purpose well. And indeed, that was where he found her, in the morning room, with three very distinguished old godspoken men from a town two hundred kilometers away.
Qing-jao introduced them graciously, and then adopted the role of submissive daughter in her father's presence. He bowed to each man, but then found occasion to reach out his hand and touch each one of them. Jane had explained that the virus was highly communicable. Mere physical closeness was usually enough; touching made it more sure.
And when they were greeted, he turned to his daughter. "Qing-jao," he said, "will you have a gift from me?"
She bowed and answered graciously, "Whatever my father has brought me, I will gratefully receive, though I know I am not worthy of his notice."
He reached out his arms and
drew her in to him. She was stiff and awkward in his embrace--he had not done such an impulsive thing before dignitaries since she was a very little girl. But he held her all the same, tightly, for he knew that she would never forgive him for what came from this embrace, and therefore it would be the last time he held his Gloriously Bright within his arms.
Qing-jao knew what her father's embrace meant. She had watched her father walking in the garden with Wang-mu. She had seen the walnut-shaped starship appear on the riverbank. She had seen him take the vial from the round-eyed stranger. She saw him drink. Then she came here, to this room, to receive visitors on her father's behalf. I am dutiful, my honored father, even when you prepare to betray me.
And even now, knowing that his embrace was his cruelest effort to cut her off from the voice of the gods, knowing that he had so little respect for her that he thought he could deceive her, she nevertheless received whatever he determined to give her. Was he not her father? His virus from the world of Lusitania might or might not steal the voice of the gods from her; she could not guess what the gods would permit their enemies to do. But certainly if she rejected her father and disobeyed him, the gods would punish her. Better to remain worthy of the gods by showing proper respect and obedience to her father, than to disobey him in the name of the gods and thereby make herself unworthy of their gifts.
So she received his embrace, and breathed deeply of his breath.
When he had spoken briefly to his guests, he left. They took his visit with them as a signal honor; so faithfully had Qing-jao concealed her father's mad rebellion against the gods that Han Fei-tzu was still regarded as the greatest man of Path. She spoke to them softly, and smiled graciously, and saw them on their way. She gave them no hint that they would carry away with them a weapon. Why should she? Human weapons would be of no use against the power of the gods, unless the gods willed it. And if the gods wished to stop speaking to the people of Path, then this might well be the disguise they had chosen for their act. Let it seem to the unbeliever that Father's Lusitanian virus cut us off from the gods; I will know, as will all other faithful men and women, that the gods speak to whomever they wish, and nothing made by human hands could stop them if they so desired. All their acts were vanity. If Congress believed that they had caused the gods to speak on Path, let them believe it. If Father and the Lusitanians believe that they are causing the gods to fall silent, let them believe it. I know that if I am only worthy of it, the gods will speak to me.
A few hours later, Qing-jao fell deathly ill. The fever struck her like a blow from a strong man's hand; she collapsed, and barely noticed as servants carried her to her bed. The doctors came, though she could have told them there was nothing they could do, and that by coming they would only expose themselves to infection. But she said nothing, because her body was struggling too fiercely against the disease. Or rather, her body was struggling to reject her own tissues and organs, until at last the transformation of her genes was complete. Even then, it took time for her body to purge itself of the old antibodies. She slept and slept.
It was bright afternoon when she awoke. "Time," she croaked, and the computer in her room spoke the hour and day. The fever had taken two days from her life. She was on fire with thirst. She got to her feet and staggered to her bathroom, turned on the water, filled the cup and drank and drank until she was satisfied. It made her giddy, to stand upright. Her mouth tasted foul. Where were the servants who should have given her food and drink during her disease?
They must be sick as well. And Father--he would have fallen ill before me. Who will bring him water?
She found him sleeping, cold with last night's sweat, trembling. She woke him with a cup of water, which he drank eagerly, his eyes looking upward into hers. Questioning? Or, perhaps, pleading for forgiveness. Do your penance to the gods, Father; you owe no apologies to a mere daughter.
Qing-jao also found the servants, one by one, some of them so loyal that they had not taken to their beds with their sickness, but rather had fallen where their duties required them to be. All were alive. All were recovering, and soon would be up again. Only after all were accounted for and tended to did Qing-jao go to the kitchen and find something to eat. She could not hold down the first food she took. Only a thin soup, heated to lukewarm, stayed with her. She carried more of the soup to the others. They also ate.
Soon all were up again, and strong. Qing-jao took servants with her and carried water and soup to all the neighboring houses, rich and poor alike. All were grateful to receive what they brought, and many uttered prayers on their behalf. You would not be so grateful, thought Qing-jao, if you knew that the disease you suffered came from my father's house, by my father's will. But she said nothing.
In all this time, the gods did not demand any purification of her.
At last, she thought. At last I am pleasing them. At last I have done, perfectly, all that righteousness required.
When she came home, she wanted to sleep at once. But the servants who had remained in the house were gathered around the holo in the kitchen, watching news reports. Qing-jao almost never watched the holo news, getting all her information from the computer; but the servants looked so serious, so worried, that she entered the kitchen and stood in their circle around the holovision.
The news was of the plague sweeping the world of Path. Quarantine had been ineffective, or else always came too late. The woman reading the report had already recovered from the disease, and she was telling that the plague had killed almost no one, though it disrupted services for many. The virus had been isolated, but it died too quickly to be studied seriously. "It seems that a bacterium is following the virus, killing it almost as soon as each person recovers from the plague. The gods have truly favored us, to send us the cure along with the plague."
Fools, thought Qing-jao. If the gods wanted you cured, they wouldn't have sent the plague in the first place.
At once she realized that she was the fool. Of course the gods could send both the disease and the cure. If a disease came, and the cure followed, then the gods had sent them. How could she have called such a thing foolish? It was as if she had insulted the gods themselves.
She flinched inwardly, waiting for the onslaught of the gods' rage. She had gone so many hours without purification that she knew it would be a heavy burden when it came. Would she have to trace a whole room again?
But she felt nothing. No desire to trace woodgrain lines. No need to wash.
She looked at her hands. There was dirt on them, and yet she didn't care. She could wash them or not, as she desired.
For a moment she felt immense relief. Could it be that Father and Wang-mu and the Jane-thing were right all along? Had a genetic change, caused by this plague, freed her at last from a hideous crime committed by Congress centuries ago?
Almost as if the news reader had heard Qing-jao's thoughts, she began reading a report about a document that was turning up on computers all over the world. The document said that this plague was a gift from the gods, freeing the people of Path from a genetic alteration performed on them by Congress. Until now, genetic enhancements were almost always linked to an OCD-like condition whose victims were commonly referred to as godspoken. But as the plague ran its course, people would find that the genetic enhancements were now spread to all the people of Path, while the godspoken, who had previously borne the most terrible of burdens, had now been released by the gods from the necessity of constant purification.
"This document says that the whole world is now purified. The gods have accepted us." The news reader's voice trembled as she spoke. "It is not known where this document came from. Computer analysis has linked it with no known author's style. The fact that it turned up simultaneously on millions of computers suggests that it came from a source with unspeakable powers." She hesitated, and now her trembling was plainly visible. "If this unworthy reader of news may ask a question, hoping that the wise will hear it and answer her with wisdom, could it not be possible that the gods
themselves have sent us this message, so that we will understand their great gift to the people of Path?"
Qing-jao listened for a while longer, as fury grew within her. It was Jane, obviously, who had written and spread this document. How dare she pretend to know what the gods were doing! She had gone too far. This document must be refuted. Jane must stand revealed, and also the whole conspiracy of the people of Lusitania.
The servants were looking at her. She met their gaze, looking for a moment at each of them around the circle.
"What do you want to ask me?" she said.
"O Mistress," said Mu-pao, "forgive our curiosity, but this news report has declared something that we can only believe if you tell us that it is true."
"What do I know?" answered Qing-jao. "I am only the foolish daughter of a great man."
"But you are one of the godspoken, Mistress," said Mu-pao.
You are very daring, thought Qing-jao, to speak of such things unbidden.
"In all this night, since you came among us with food and drink, and as you led so many of us out among the people, tending the sick, you have never once excused yourself for purification. We have never seen you go so long."
"Did it not occur to you," said Qing-jao, "that perhaps we were so well fulfilling the will of the gods that I had no need of purification during that time?"
Mu-pao looked abashed. "No, we did not think of that."
"Rest now," said Qing-jao. "None of us is strong yet. I must go and speak to my father."
She left them to gossip and speculate among themselves. Father was in his room, seated before the computer. Jane's face was in the display. Father turned to her as soon as she entered the room. His face was radiant. Triumphant.
"Did you see the message that Jane and I prepared?" he said.
"You!" cried Qing-jao. "My father, a teller of lies?"
To say such a thing to her father was unthinkable. But still she felt no need to purify herself. It frightened her, that she could speak with such disrespect and yet the gods did not rebuke her.