The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

if he could see in the dark. Maybe he could. The locals constantly surprised Kinnsell with their uncanny abilities.
    Kinnsell quickly donned the heavily veiled headdress that kept his identity as a human from a different planet concealed. He hated the costume of layer upon layer of wispy chiffon. But the family insisted. This world must not be tainted by knowledge of its Terran past or by technology and pollution. Soon he’d end the charade. The TGE needed the fresh food produced by this world. But not tonight. He’d not reveal himself or his mission to this bushie noble with delusions of grandeur. Not until Kinnsell had control of the situation.
    “ ’Tis, I, Chieftain of the Varns,” Kinnsell replied in solemn tones suitable to an awesome being of unknown origin and proportions.
    “Do you have enough wealth to bribe me to release my entire plantation of the Tambootie?” The man’s voice didn’t show any sign of deference or awe in the face of one of the legendary Varn traders.
    A niggle of disappointment knotted at the base of Kinnsell’s spine. His ancestors had started the cult of the Stargods here. His people should appear as gods to these primitives! Instead he was forced by an outdated covenant to effect this ghostly appearance.
    But he needed the Tambootie. Lots of it. A lot more than King Quinnault and his own daughter had been willing to give him.
    The plague raged throughout the TGE; Tambootie was the only known cure. If he had enough of the weed, he could eliminate the disease forever—as it should have been when genetic scientists first realized their experimental microbe not only ate toxic waste and air pollution, it ate the toxins within human bodies that had built up over generations of uncontrolled industrial waste. And then ate the human hosts.
    “I have seeds that will triple your yield of grains,” Kinnsell intoned. “Provided the Tambootie is from the spring harvest, and not fallen leaves from last autumn.”
    “Seeds won’t do me much good. Most of my land is crags and ravines.” The bushie noble spat into the dirt on the forest floor.
    “I have sheep embryos that when grown will yield wool so long it will spin almost as fine as silk.”
    “Embryos? What are they?”
    “Fertilized eggs you implant into the uterus of a female sheep.”
    “Demon spawn!” The man shuddered and made a curious flapping gesture with crossed wrists. His heavy signet ring glinted in the moonlight.
    Kinnsell realized the man did not wear a traditional seal set into the ring. Instead, the fine silverwork represented an elaborate and twisted knot reminiscent of his Celtic ancestors on Terra. He suddenly knew lust for that ring. He’d have it on his own hand before he left this backwater for home. His hand thrust forward, reasserting control.
    “I’ll not impregnate my good sheep with demon spirits.” The lord continued. “I’ll continue feeding the s’murghin’ dragons my Tambootie rather than deal with demons.”
    “Can you mine your land?” Kinnsell was running out of options. His hand remained forward, still trying to regain control. He hadn’t much left on his mother ship that would help these people—or bribe them.
    “My mines were played out generations ago. Not enough iron and copper left to make it worth hauling the slag to the surface.” The man’s eyes shifted to the side, sure indication he lied.
    He had coal. Coal that could fuel industrial plants—here or elsewhere. Kinnsell had smelled the dust the last time he visited Balthazaan.
    He smiled and swallowed any lingering loyalty to the anachronistic family covenant. His hand came back in a position of smooth flight. “I can give you tools that will cut through solid rock to the hidden veins of ore.”
    The lord’s eyes opened wide in greed, then narrowed in speculation. “What good are those tools if my miners don’t know where the veins are?” He twisted his ring. A sign of agitation or greed?
    “I have a second tool that senses the presence of precious metals, iron and coal as well.” Kinnsell’s mind brightened at the thought of gleaming steel, a commodity of increasing scarcity now that the largest iron-producing colonies had domed their cities and abandoned their mines in favor of full citizenship in the TGE. Now that he’d transgressed a little against the family covenant, he might as well go all the way. “But for the tools, I’ll need more than the plantation of the Tambootie trees in trade.”
    “I