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

faulty as well. Considered as a whole, each castle is a single hermaphroditic creature."

"What do they eat?"

"The mobiles eat pap, predigested food obtained inside the castle. They get it from the maw after


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she has worked on it for several days. Their stomachs can't handle anything else. If the maw dies,
they soon die as well. The maw. . . the maw eats anything. You'll have no special expense there.
Table scraps will do excellently."

"Live food?" Kress asked.

Wo shrugged. "Each maw eats mobiles from the other castles, yes."

"I am intrigued," he admitted. "If only they weren't so small!"

"Yours can be larger. These sandkings are small because their tank is small. They seem to limit
their growth to fit available space. If I moved these to a larger tank, they'd start growing
again."

"Hmmm. My piranha tank is twice this size and vacant. It could be cleaned out, filled with sand .
. ."

"Wo and Shade would take care of the installation. It would be our pleasure."

"Of course," Kress said, "I would expect four intact castles."

"Certainly," Wo said.

They began to haggle about the price.

Three days later Jala Wo arrived at Simon Kress's estate, with dormant sandkings and a y work crew
to take charge of the installation. Wo's assistants were aliens unlike any Kress was familiar with-
squat, broad bipeds with four arms and bulging, multifaceted eyes. Their skin.

e

was thick and leathery and twisted into horns and spines and protrusions at odd places upon their
bodies. But they were very strong, and e good workers. Wo ordered them about in a musical tongue
that Kress has never heard before.

In a day it was done. They moved his piranha tank to the center of his spacious living room,
arranged couches on either side of it for better viewing, scrubbed it clean, and filled it two
thirds of the way up with sand and rock. Then they installed a special lighting system, both to
provide the dim red illumination the sandkings preferred and to project holographic images s into
the tank. On top they mounted a sturdy plastic cover, with a feeder mechanism built in. w "This