"George R. R. Martin - The Sandkings" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

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SANDKINGS

By George R.R. Martin

Simon Kress lived alone in a sprawling manor house among dry, rocky hills fifty kilometers from
the city. So, when he was called away unexpectedly on business, he had no neighbors he could
conveniently impose on to take his pets. The carrion hawk was no problem; it roosted in the unused
belfry and customarily fed itself anyway. The shambler Kress simply shooed outside and left to
fend for itself; the little monster would gorge on slugs and birds and rock jocks. But the fish
tank, stocked with genuine earth piranha, posed a difficulty. Finally Kress just threw a haunch of
beef into the huge tank. The piranha could always eat one another if he were detained longer than
expected. They'd done it before. It amused him.

Unfortunately, he was detained much longer than expected this time. When he finally returned, all
the fish were dead. So was the carrion hawk. The shambler had climbed up the belfry and eaten it.
Kress was vexed.
The next day he flew his skimmer to Asgard, a journey of some two hundred kilometers. Asgard was
Baldur's largest city and boasted the oldest and largest starport as well. Kress liked to impress
his friends with animals that were unusual, entertaining, and expensive; Asgard was the place to
buy them.

This time, . though, he had poor luck. Xenopets had closed its doors, t'Etherane the Pet seller
tried to foist another carrion hawk off on him, and Strange Waters offered nothing more exotic
than piranha, glow sharks, and spider squids. Kress had had all those; he wanted something new,
something that would stand out.

Near dusk he found himself walking down Rainbow Boulevard, looking for places he had not
patronized before. So close to the starport, the street was lined by importers' marts. The big
corporate emporiums had impressive long windows, in which rare and costly alien artifacts reposed
on felt cushions against dark drapes that made the interiors of the stores a mystery. Between them
were the junk shops-narrow, nasty little places whose display areas were crammed with all manner
of off world bric-a-brac. Kress tried both kinds of shops, with equal dissatisfaction.

Then he came across a store that was different.

It was very near the port. Kress had never been there before. The shop occupied a small, single-
story building of moderate size, set between a euphoria bar and a temple brothel of

the Secret Sisterhood.- Down this far, Rainbow Boulevard grew tacky. The shop itself was unusual.
Arresting.

The windows were full of mist-now a pale red, now the gray of true fog, now sparkling and golden.
The mist swirled and eddied and glowed faintly from within. Kress glimpsed objects in the window
machines, pieces of art, other things he could not recognize-but he could not get a good look at