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 multicolored sandkings the curator explains that the insectlike animals no larger than simons fingernails are not insects but animals with a highlyevolved hive intelligence capable of staging wars between the different colors and even religion in the form of worship of their owner the curators warning to simon about the regularity of their feeding unfortunately was not taken seriouslycontents the way of cross and dragon 1979 bitterblooms 1977 in the house of the worm 1976 fastfriend 1976 the stone city 1977 starlady 1976 sandkings 1979cover illustration by michael whelan