Rating: ****
Tags: Fiction, General, Science Fiction, American, Short Stories, Horror tales, Lang:en
Summary
When Simon Kress returned to his home
planet of Baldur from an offworld business trip, he was amused
to find that his tank of Earth piranhas had cannibalized
themselves into extinction, and of the two exotic animals that
roamed his estate, only one remained. Now, in search of some
new pets to satisfy his cruel pursuit of amusement, Simon finds
a new shop in the city where he is intrigued by a new lifeform
he has never heard of before ... a collection of multi-colored
sandkings. The curator explains that the insect-like animals,
no larger than Simon's fingernails, are not insects, but
animals with a highly-evolved hive intelligence capable of
staging wars between the different colors, and even
religion--in the form of worship of their owner. The curator's
warning to Simon about the regularity of their feeding,
unfortunately, was not taken seriously.... ["Outer Limits"
Episode] Hugo Award Winner, Locus Poll Award Winner, Nebula
Award(R) Winner