“Greed is universal,” Kai says. His face is thoughtful, his eyes a little distant. “In the Burque we have water barons that are like that. They control everything. Deep wells and waterworks like you’ve never seen. Catchments and evaporators up in the mountains. Water making them wealthy like Renaissance princes.” He pushes his aviators up off his face, squints into the sun. “Seems anywhere there’s a natural resource, there’s someone willing to hoard it for themselves to make more money than they can spend.”
