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

"Cute," said Kress. "And common. I have no use for either, Wo. I want something exotic. Unusual.
And not cute. I detest cute animals. At the moment I own a shambler. Imported from Cotho, at no
mean expense. From time to

time I feed him a litter of unwanted kittens. That is what I think of cute. Do I make myself
understood?"

Wo smiled enigmatically. "Have you ever owned an animal that worshipped you?" she asked.

Kress grinned. "Oh, now and again. But I don't require worship, Wo. Just entertainment."

"You misunderstand me," Wo said, still wearing her strange smile. "I meant worship literally."

"What are you talking about?"

"I think I have just the thing for you," Wo said. "Follow me."

She led him between the radiant counters and down a long, fog-shrouded aisle beneath false
starlight. They passed through a wall of mist into another section of the store, then stopped in
front of a large plastic tank. An aquarium, Kress thought.

Wo beckoned. He stepped closer and saw that he was wrong. It was a terrarium. Within lay a
miniature desert about two meters square. Pale sand tinted scarlet by wan red light. Rocks: basalt
and quartz and granite. In each corner of the tank stood a castle.

Kress blinked and peered and corrected himself; actually, there were only three castles standing.
The fourth leaned, a crumbled, broken ruin. The three others were crude but intact, carved of
stone and sand. Over their battlements and through their rounded porticoes tiny creatures climbed
and scrambled. Kress pressed his face against the plastic.
"Insects?" he asked.

"No," Wo replied. "A much more complex life form. More intelligent as well. Smarter than your
shambler by a considerable amount. They are called sandkings."

"Insects," Kress said, drawing back from the tank. "I don't care how complex they are." He
frowned. "And kindly don't try to gull me with this talk of intelligence. These things are far too


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small to have anything but the most rudimentary brains."

"They share hive minds," Wo said. "Castle minds, in this case. There are only three organisms in
the tank, actually. The fourth died. You see how her castle has fallen."

Kress looked back at the tank. "Hive minds, eh? Interesting." He frowned again. "Still, it is only
an oversized ant farm. I'd hoped for something better."

"They fight wars."