“You’re not my teacher now,” said Virlomi.

“Well, you’re certainly wrong about one thing, whether I’m your teacher or not,” said Graff.

She waited.

“You have not yet faced the most terrible enemies that China and the Muslim world can hurl against you.”

“Do you think Han Tzu can get into India again? I’m not Tikal Chapekar.”

“And he’s not the Politburo or Snow Tiger.”

“He’s Ender’s Jeeshmate,” she said in mock awe.

“He’s not caught up in his own mystique,” said Rackham, who had not spoken till now. “For your own sake, Virlomi, take a good hard look in the mirror. You’re what megalomania looks like in the early stages.”

“I have no ambition for myself,” said Virlomi.

“If you define India as whatever you conceive it to be,” said Rackham, “you’ll wake up some terrible morning and discover that it is not what you need it to be.”

“And you say this from your vast experience of governing…what country was it, now, Mr. Rackham?”

Rackham only smiled. “Pride, when poked, gets petty.”

“Was that already a proverb?” asked Virlomi. “Or should I write it down?”

“The offer stands,” said Graff. “It’s irrevocable as long as you live.”

“Why don’t you make the same offer to Peter?” asked Virlomi. “He’s the one who needs to take the long voyage.”

She decided she wasn’t going to get a better exit line than that, so she walked slowly, gracefully, to the door. No one spoke as she departed.

Her sailors helped her back into the rowboat and cast off. Peter did not come to the rail to wave her off; just another discourtesy, not that she would have acknowledged him even if he had. As for Graff and Rackham, they’d soon enough be coming to her for funding—no, for permission to operate their little colony ministry.

The dhow took her back to a different fishing village from the one she had sailed from—no point in making things easy for Alai, if he had discovered her departure from Hyderabad and followed her.

She rode a train back to Hyderabad, passing for an ordinary citizen—if any Muslim soldiers should be so bold as to search the train. But the people knew who she was. Whose face was better known in all of India? And not being Muslim, she didn’t have to cover her face.

The first thing I will do, when I rule India, is change the name of Hyderabad. Not back to Bhagnagar—even though it was named for an Indian woman, the name was bestowed by the Muslim prince who destroyed the original Indian village in order to build the Charminar, a monument to his own power, supposedly in honor of his beloved Hindu wife.

India will never again be obliterated in order to appease the power lust of Muslims. The new name of Hyderabad will be the original name of the village: Chichlam.

She made her way from the train station to a safe house in the city, and from there her aides helped get her back inside the hut where she had supposedly been meditating and praying for India for the three days she had been gone. There she slept for a few hours.