Episode 5

his social life, but he still enjoyed having a few friends over for a war or two. He kept the combatants sharp on a constant edge of

hunger. It had severe effects on the orange sandkings, who dwindled visibly until Kress began to wonder if their maw was dead. But

the others did well enough.

Sometimes at night, when he could not sleep, Kress would take a bottle of wine into the darkened living room, where the red gloom of

his miniature desert was the only light. He would drink and watch for hours, alone. There was usually a fight going on somewhere,

and when there was not he could easily start one by dropping in some small morsel of food.

They took to betting on the weekly battles, as Malada Blane had suggested. Kress won a good amount by betting on the whites, who

had become the most powerful and numerous colony in the tank, with the grandest castle. One week he slid the corner of the tank top

aside, and dropped the food close to the white castle instead of on the central battleground as usual, so that the others had to attack the

whites in their stronghold to get any food at all. They tried. The whites were brilliant in defense. Kress won a hundred standards from

Jad Rakkis.

Rakkis, in fact, lost heavily on the sandkings almost every week. He pretended to a vast knowledge of them and their ways, claiming

that he had studied them after the first party, but he had no luck when it came to placing his bets. Kress suspected that Jad's claims

were empty boasting. He had tried to study the sandkings a bit himself, in a moment of idle curiosity, tying in to the library to find out

to what world his pets were native. But there was no listing for them. He wanted to get in touch with Wo and ask her about it, but he

had other concerns, and the matter kept slipping his mind. Finally, after a month in which his losses totalled more than a thousand

standards, Jad Rakkis arrived at the war games carrying a small plastic case under his arm. Inside was a spiderlike thing covered with

fine golden hair.

“A sand spider,” Rakkis announced. “From Cathaday. I got it this afternoon from t'Etherane the Petseller. Usually they remove the

poison sacs, but this one is intact. Are you game, Simon? I want my money back. I'll bet a thousand standards, sand spider against

sandkings.”

Kress studied the spider in its plastic prison. His sandkings had grown—they were twice as large as Wo's, as she'd predicted—but they

were still dwarfed by this thing. It was venomed, and they were not. Still, there were an awful lot of them. Besides, the endless

sandking wars had begun to grow tiresome lately. The novelty of the match intrigued him. “Done,” Kress said. “Jad, you are a fool.

The sandkings will just keep coming until this ugly creature of yours is dead.”

“You are the fool, Simon,” Rakkis replied, smiling. “The Cathadayn sand spider customarily feeds on burrowers that hide in nooks

and crevices and—well, watch—it will go straight into those castles, and eat the maws.”

Kress scowled amid general laughter. He hadn't counted on that. “Get on with it,” he said irritably. He went to freshen his drink.

The spider was too large to cycle conveniently through the food chamber. Two of the others helped Rakkis slide the tank top slightly

to one side, and Malada Blane handed him up his case. He shook the spider out. It landed lightly on a miniature dune in front of the

red castle, and stood confused for a moment, mouth working, legs twitching menacingly.

“Come on,” Rakkis urged. They all gathered round the tank. Simon Kress found his magnifiers and slipped them on. If he was going

to lose a thousand standards, at least he wanted a good view of the action.

The sandkings had seen the invader. All over the castle, activity had ceased. The small scarlet mobiles were frozen, watching.

The spider began to move toward the dark promise of the gate. On the tower above, Simon Kress’ countenance stared down

impassively.

At once there was a flurry of activity. The nearest red mobiles formed themselves into two wedges and streamed over the sand toward

the spider. More warriors erupted from inside the castle and assembled in a triple line to guard the approach to the underground

chamber where the maw lived. Scouts came scuttling over the dunes, recalled to fight.

Battle was joined.

The attacking sandkings washed over the spider. Mandibles snapped shut on legs and abdomen, and clung. Reds raced up the golden

legs to the invader's back. They bit and tore. One of them found an eye, and ripped it loose with tiny yellow tendrils. Kress smiled and

pointed.

But they were small, and they had no venom, and the spider did not stop. Its legs flicked sandkings off to either side. Its dripping jaws

found others, and left them broken and stiffening. Already a dozen of the reds lay dying. The sand spider came on and on. It strode

straight through the triple line of guardians before the castle. The lines closed around it, covered it, waging desperate battle. A team of

sandkings had bitten off one of the spider's legs, Kress saw. Defenders leaped from atop the towers to land on the twitching, heaving

mass.

Lost beneath the sandkings, the spider somehow lurched down into the darkness and vanished.

Jad Rakkis let out a long breath. He looked pale. “Wonderful,” someone else said. Malada Blane chuckled deep in her throat.

“Look,” said Idi Noreddian, tugging Kress by the arm.

They had been so intent on the struggle in the corner that none of them had noticed the activity elsewhere in the tank. But now the

castle was still, the sands empty save for dead red mobiles, and now they saw.

Three armies were drawn up before the red castle. They stood quite still, in perfect array, rank after rank of sandkings, orange and

white and black. Waiting to see what emerged from the depths.

Simon Kress smiled. “A cordon sanitaire,” he said. “And glance at the other castles, if you will, Jad.”

Rakkis did, and swore. Teams of mobiles were sealing up the gates with sand and stone. If the spider somehow survived this

encounter, it would find no easy entrance at the other castles. “I should have brought four spiders,” Jad Rakkis said. “Still, I've won.

My spider is down there right now, eating your damned maw.”

Kress did not reply. He waited. There was motion in the shadows.

5

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