"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."