I can only judge by what I understand. If as far as I can see, the gods that Qing-jao believes in are only evil, then yes, perhaps I’m wrong, perhaps I can’t comprehend the great purpose they accomplish by making the godspoken into helpless slaves, or destroying whole species. But in my heart I have no choice but to reject such gods, because I can’t see any good in what they’re doing. Perhaps I’m so stupid and foolish that I will always be the enemy of the gods, working against their high and incomprehensible purposes. But I have to life according to what I understand, and what I understand is that there are no such gods as the ones the godspoken teach us about. If they exist at all, they take pleasure in oppression and deception, humiliation and ignorance. They act to make other people smaller and themselves larger. Those would not be gods, then, even if they existed. They would be enemies. Devils.

The same with beings, whoever they are, who made the descolanda virus. Yes, they would have to be very powerful to create a tool like that. But they would also have to be heartless, selfish, arrogant beings, to think that all life in the universe was theirs to manipulate as they saw fit. To send the descolanda out into the universe, not caring who it killed or what beautiful creatures it destroyed-those could not be gods, either.

Jane, now-Jane might be a god. Jane knew vast amounts of information and had great wisdom as well, and she was acting for the good of others, even when it would take her life-even now, after her life was forfeit. And Andrew Wiggin, he might be a god, so wise and kind he seemed, and not acting for his own benefit but for the pequeninos. And Valentine, who called herself Demothenes, she had worked to help other people find truth and make wise decisions of their own. And Master Han, who was trying to do the right thing always, even when it cost him his daughter. Maybe even Ela, the scientist, even though she had not known all that she ought to have known-for she was not ashamed to learn the truth from a servant girl.

Of course they were not the sort of gods who lived off in the Infinate West, in the Palace of the Royal Mother. Nor were they gods in their own eyes-they would laugh at her for even thinking of it. But compared to her, they were gods indeed. They were so much wiser than Wang-mu, and so much more powerful, and as far as she could understand their purposes, they were trying to help other people become as wise and powerful as possible. Even wiser and more powerful than they were themselves. So even though Wang-mu might be wrong, even though she might be truly understanding nothing at all about anything, nevertheless she knew that her decision to work with these people was the right one for her to make.

She could only do good as far a she could understood what goodness was. And these people seemed to her to be doing good, while Congress seemed to be doing evil. So even though in the long run it might destroy her-for Master Han was now an enemy of Congress, and might be arrested and killed, and her along with him-still she would do it. She would never see real gods, but she could at least work to help those people who are as close to being gods as any real person could ever be.

And if the gods don’t like it, they can poison me in my sleep or catch me on fire as I’m walking in the garden tomorrow or just make my arms and legs and head drop off my body like crumbs off cake. If they can’t manage to stop a stupid little servant girl like me, they don’t amount to much anyway.