The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

haven’t got much else. The wars stripped me of everything but a few worthless acres and a bunch of daughters.”
    “Then with your first profits from the veins of ore my tools find for you, you must buy every ton of surplus grain you can find.” The Empire needed food more than additional supplies of steel.
    “Surpluses are supposed to go to the king. Security against drought, he says.” A note of disgust tinged the man’s reply. He abandoned twisting his ring to clench his fist and shake it in anger.
    Kinnsell got a better look at the ring and coveted it more. He also knew he could exploit the lord’s emotion. King Quinnault’s foresight in preparing for a drought still five years off—if the normal weather cycle prevailed—had been denounced as ludicrous by his shortsighted nobles. They wanted profit. Now.
    “My people suffer from drought now,” Kinnsell said. A drought of resources of their own making, not weather induced. He couldn’t change a situation created almost a thousand years ago, but he could profit from his society’s policy of stripping planets and moving on. “We need the grain now. Your king doesn’t need surplus food until a new drought hits you. Droughts are the whims of the Stargods. The next one may never come, or it may be delayed.”
    “Or it might come tomorrow. I’m not certain incurring the king’s wrath by giving up so much Tambootie and selling surplus food is worth a few sledgeloads of ore.”
    “No mere mortal can tell for sure when a drought will come.” Kinnsell fought to keep the desperation out of his voice. These bushies weren’t easy to corrupt. Or rather, they were so corrupt already he couldn’t turn their vices to his own benefit. The benefit of the TGE, he corrected himself. “You haven’t hoarded surpluses before and your people always survived. A year’s delay in adhering to the king’s new laws won’t hurt.”
    “Give me some reasons not to obey these new laws now. I did just fine in the old days making my own laws and ruling my lands by myself without inference from any king.”
    Kinnsell swallowed a sharp retort that the lord hadn’t done “just fine” during the generations of war. Instead he said, “King Quinnault is like a fanatical priest. He wants everyone to believe as he does without variation and without logical explanations. He doesn’t want the good of the country, he wants control of your lives, your resources, your minds.” Kinnsell paused a moment to let that thought sink in. “The sooner Quinnault is brought down, the sooner you can go back to making a profit any way you see fit.”
    “The other lords and I signed agreements to support him. The people love him. Chancy thing to depose him.” The bushie lord was back to twisting the ring.
    “The people love him now because they don’t truly know him. He won’t let them see the truth of his need to control every aspect of life in Kardia Hodos—including their thoughts. How do you think he quelled that riot last autumn if not by mind control? You must show them the truth. Then you will be free to sell your resources for a profit rather than pay the king’s useless taxes.”
    “You’ll trade me rock cutting tools and ore finders?” The bushie noble tapped his lip with his forefinger as if mulling over the possibilities.
    Kinnsell sincerely wished his telepathy could penetrate the man’s mind. The locals like this lord with dark hair and olive skin, similar to the natives of the Mediterranean on Terra, seemed totally impervious to the family talent. The ones with fairer coloring opened easily to telepathic probes—unless they had psi powers that allowed them to pretend to be magicians. He hadn’t met anyone with Asian or African features to know how widespread the natural shields were. Each race resided on a different continent here; except for the ones like this lord. They wandered the whole planet like Gypsies.
    “You Varns always trade in diamonds. If I had some diamonds, I could buy my neighbor’s surplus tomorrow,” the bushie lord suggested. “You wouldn’t have to wait until I reopened the mines and found a viable vein of ore, then found a market for it and sold it.”
    “A sudden influx of gems will shout to all of Kardia Hodos that you have traded with Varns. King Quinnault will look closely at your plantations of the Tambootie to see if you have violated your covenant with the dragons.”
    The noble crossed himself and murmured a prayer. Then he