Qing-jao felt pity rising within her, but she rejected it. Now was not the time to succumb to weak feelings. The gods had created her for a reason; surely this was the great work of her life. If she failed now, she would be unworthy forever; she would never be pure. So she would not fail. She would not allow this computer program to deceive her and win her sympathy.

She turned to her father. “We must notify Starways Congress at once, so they can set into motion the simultaneous shutoff of all the ansibles as soon as clean computers can be readied to replace the contaminated ones.”

To her surprise, Father shook his head. “I don't know, Qing-jao. What this– what she says about Starways Congress– they are capable of this sort of thing. Some of them are so evil they make me feel filthy just talking to them. I knew they planned to destroy Lusitania without– but I served the gods, and the gods chose– or I thought they did. Now I understand so much of the way they treat me when I meet with– but then it would mean that the gods don't– how can I believe that I've spent my whole life in service to a brain defect– I can't– I have to …”

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.