Episode 1

Simon Kress lived alone in a sprawling manor house among the 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 rockjocks. But the fish tank, stocked with genuine Earth piranha, posed

a difficulty. Kress finally just threw a haunch of beef into the huge tank. The piranha could always eat each other 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 to the belfry and eaten it.

Simon 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 Petseller tried to foist another carrion hawk off on him, and Strange Waters offered nothing more exotic than

piranha, glowsharks, and spider-squids. Kress had had all those; he wanted something new. Near dusk, he found himself walking

down the 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, where 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 offworld bric-a-brac. Kress tried both kinds of shops, with equal

dissatisfaction. Then he came across a store that was different. It was quite close to 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, the 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 any of them. The mists flowed sensuously around them, displaying a bit of first one thing and then another, then cloaking all. It was

intriguing. As he watched, the mist began to form letters. One word at a time. Kress stood and read:

WO. AND. SHADE. IMPORTERS. ARTIFACTS. ART. LIFEFORMS. AND. MISC.

The letters stopped. Through the fog, Kress saw something moving. That was enough for him, that and the word “Lifeforms” in their

advertisement. He swept his walking cloak over his shoulder and entered the store.

Inside, Kress felt disoriented. The interior seemed vast, much larger than he would have guessed from the relatively modest frontage.

It was dimly lit, peaceful. The ceiling was a starscape, complete with spiral nebulae, very dark and realistic, very nice. The counters all

shone faintly, the better to display the merchandise within. The aisles were carpeted with ground fog. In places, it came almost to his

knees and swirled about his feet as he walked.

“Can I help you?”

She seemed almost to have risen from the fog. Tall and gaunt and pale, she wore a practical gray jumpsuit and a strange little cap that

rested well back on her head.

“Are you Wo or Shade?” Kress asked. “Or only sales help?”

“Jala Wo, ready to serve you,” she replied. “Shade does not see customers. We have no sales help.”

“You have quite a large establishment,” Kress said. “Odd that I have never heard of you before.”

“We have only just opened this shop on Baldur,” the woman said. “We have franchises on a number of other worlds, however. What

can I sell you? Art, perhaps? You have the look of a collector. We have some fine Nor T'alush crystal carvings.”

“No,” Simon Kress said. “I own all the crystal carvings I desire. I came to see about a pet.”

“A lifeform?”

“Yes.”

“Alien?”

“Of course.”

“We have a mimic in stock. From Celia's World. A clever little simian. Not only will it learn to speak, but eventually it will mimic

your voice, inflections, gestures, even facial expressions.”

“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 worshiped 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 Kress 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, and stopped before a large plastic tank. An aquarium, thought Kress.

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 bleached scarlet by wan red light. Rocks: basalt and quartz and granite. In each corner of the tank stood a castle.

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