"Barbarians indeed…" The old woman shook her head and turned out the light. The heedless racism of the Flower Priests was only part of the puzzle confronting her. Given her purpose, other matters were more pressing than trying to teach them manners.

Settling back into her nest, Itzpalicue stripped a comm thread against her cheek and tapped open a fresh channel pane. Radiance from a room filled with bright lights lit up her wrinkled old face. Behind her, a pale yellow flush climbed across tapestries made from hundreds of thousands of tiny, carefully placed feathers stitched to a silk backing. Turquoise hummingbird, green quetzal, yellow parrot, red spoonbill, raven, glossy crow and blue cotinga shone brilliantly in the darkness. Scenes of Mйxica soldiers with golden breastplates and backswept, Niseistyle helmets wading through the surf onto a green shore emerged. Pigeon down made the white sails of the mighty fleet behind them. The sky was bruised gray in owl and sparrow, heralding an impending storm. Bearded men – pale-skinned, with bristling red mustaches – were waiting, hands raised in greeting. Their tartans and breeks were wild with vivid, clashing color.

On the opposite wall, the carnage of Badon Hill was vividly displayed. The faces of the Anglish soldiers, fleeing in defeat, were stark. Far in the background, the skyline of London was aflame. Amid clouds of gunsmoke, the Skawtish king Stuart advanced on a white horse with fetlocks stained red with blood. He, at least, was properly dressed in a russet mantle with bracelets of turquoise and gold.

"Have you finished deploying the secondary hi-band array?" Itzpalicue grimaced, watching the disorderly chaos of men and women moving boxes in the background of the image on the v-pane. There were no locals among the workers. Every one was an Imperial, imported at considerable cost from the nearest loyal colony. The old woman did not intend to lose her quarry for want of a few quills or horseshoes.

"Yes, mi'lady." The Mirror engineer in charge of the operations center was a hair too young for comfort, but he had come highly recommended. "We'll be finished tomorrow. Everyone's moved in, all of the landlines are active, and satellite is coming on-line now…"

"Are your generators shielded? How deep are you?"

The boy – could he be more than twenty? – nodded sharply. "Yes, mi'lady. This set of rooms is twenty meters beneath the city ground line." He grinned. "Six hundred years ago, we'd have had a nice view of the street. Right now we're still on city trunk power, but by tonight we'll switch over to a rack of fuel cells in an even lower basement."

"Good." Itzpalicue was pleased. The xochiyaotinime did not intend their War to erupt for another two weeks, but the old woman believed in being well prepared. Experience suggested that the arrival of the Fleet battle group – and the prince, once his presence was known – might incite the natives to violence long before the troublemaking priests had finished clearing and grading the field of battle. "Security?"

"Well…" The lead engineer's face twisted sour. "Are…are th ese creatures trustworthy?"

"The Arachosians?" Itzpalicue laughed breathily. "Don't they seem trustworthy with their wicked kalang knives and long muskets? With such peaceful faces and polite ways?"

"Mi'lady!" The engineer did not spit on the floor, but she knew he wanted to. "The Arachs are notorious thieves and murderers, brigands with chains of fore-teeth around their necks, scales pitted and scarred from a hundred brawls…muskets? You've provided them with some odd-looking muskets! Muskets don't take clips of Imperial Standard 8mm 'firecrackers,'do they? No, I don't trust them at all."

"They've not set aside their long knives for our new toys, have they?" The old woman sat up a little straighter, concerned.

"No." The engineer shook his head. "Most of them are carrying muskets, axes, stabbing swords, bandoliers of grenades…"

"Good. Very good." Itzpalicue was relieved. "Lachlan-tzin, you can trust the Arachs while they are waiting for the other half of their payment. After that…well, we will be far from here. The Jehanan princes can clean up the mess. So, while no one offers them a more generous array of toys, you can trust them to keep you and your technicians safe."

The Йirishman shrugged, nervous but wanting to believe.

"What about surveillance in the cities?" Itzpalicue had begun to key up screen after screen of surveillance channels on her displays, each sub-pane no more than a palm wide. Most of them were still dark and inactive.

"Tomorrow," Lachlan replied, squaring his shoulders. "We're waiting for the nymast to fly up at dusk before we launch the spyeyes. I have three crews – protected by your trusty Arachs – laying out the hives on appropriate rooftops tonight."

The old woman raised an eyebrow, fixing him with a piercing glare.

"The nymast," the engineer said, a little stiffly, "are night-flying avians which feed on the insect cloud which rises over the city at sundown. I thought…I thought we should be careful in releasing the spyeyes… It is possible someone might mark the launch and…"

"Wise." Itzpalicue dismissed the rest of his explanation with a sharp twitch of her fingers. "The Jehanan are neither savages nor fools. They have eyes and the wits to understand what might be seen. What about asset tracking? Do we have a trace on every Flower Priest active on Jagan?"

Lachlan nodded, shoulders settling. "Sixteen groundside controllers, all running under Imperial merchant passports from a variety of authorized pochtecan based at the Sobipurй spaceport or in Parus itself. We tagged them within a day of arrival. There are another seven operating under double-cover in the hinterlands… Four are locked, and we're running down the other three."

The old woman nodded, considering. The numbers matched those provided by the Flower Priests. "These seven are presenting themselves as agents of 'Swedish Naval Operations and Research'?"

"Yes. We've tentative pheromone, scent and skin flake idents on them; but given the relatively few number of Imperials working on Jagan…we should be able to keep track of them fairly easily."

"I assume they are already hard at work?"

Lachlan nodded, sandy hair falling into his eyes. "Sowing mischief, mi'lady. Selling arms and ammunition, filling the hearing pores of local revolutionaries with wild tales…blackening the Emperor's name with a will. Within three weeks, I would guess, every local potentate will be sweating tears in his sleep, wondering when the sky will open and the invasion fleet will descend. The usual Swedish line of propaganda."

"Good." Itzpalicue swept her eyes across the feeds. "And every marginal sect leader, patriot, malcontent and outlaw will be hyping himself into a frenzy. Someone must save civilization from the invaders, of course. Have you identified the princes who will step forward?"

"The darmanarga moktar – Those-Who-Restore-the-Right-Path?" Lachlan's forehead creased. "No. Not yet. The 'Swedish' agents are still sounding out possible allies among the kujen. Do you want me to anticipate them?"

The old woman shook her head slowly, eyes fixed on one of the v-panes. The motion of her retinas caused the pane to unfold, filling the display with vibrant color and motion:

Hundreds of brightly painted kites were dancing above the rooftops – somewhere in the city where an Imperial spyeye was already aloft – weaving and ducking in grayish air. As she watched, one of the kites, diamond-shaped with a stubby tail, controlled from the ground by what seemed to be an adolescent Jaganite, swerved across the path of another. For a moment, their controlling strings tangled and Itzpalicue blinked – was that a spark? Then one cord parted and a black and white striped kite tumbled out of the sky, string cut.