plummet down and vanish in the lava below.
It was dusk when he returned to his house. This gave him pause. Briefly he considered flying back to the city and spending the night there. He put the thought aside. There was work to do. He wasn't safe yet.
He scattered the poison pellets around the exterior of his house. No one would think this suspicious. He had always had a rockjock problem. When this task was completed, he primed the canister of pesticide and ventured back inside the house.
Kress went through the house, room by room, turning on lights everywhere he went until he was surrounded by a blaze of artificial illumination. He paused to clean up in the living room, shoveling sand and plastic fragments back into the broken tank. The sandkings were all gone, as he'd feared. The castles were shrunken and distorted, slagged by the watery bombardment Kress had visited upon them, and what little of them remained was crumbling as it dried.
He frowned and searched further, the canister of pest spray strapped across his shoulders.
Down in the wine cellar he could see Cath m'Lane's corpse.
It sprawled at the foot of a steep flight of stairs, the limbs twisted as if by a fall. White mobiles were swarming all over it, and as Kress watched, the body moved jerkily across the hard-packed dirt floor.
He laughed and twisted the illumination up to maximum. In the far corner a squat little earthen castle and a dark hole were visible between two wine racks. Kress could make out a rough outline of his face on the cellar wall.
The body shifted once again, moving a few centimeters toward the castle. Kress had a sudden vision of the white maw waiting hungrily. It might be able to get Cath's foot in its mouth, but no more. It was too absurd. He laughed again and stared down into the cellar, finger poised on the trigger of the hose that snaked down his right arm. The sandkings hundreds of them moving as one-deserted the body and assumed battle formation, a field of white between him and their maw.
Suddenly Kress had another inspiration. He smiled and lowered his firing hand. 'Cath was always hard to swallow,' he said, delighted at his wit. 'Especially for one your size. Here, let me give you some help. What are gods for, after all?'
He retreated upstairs, returning shortly with a cleaver. The sandkings, patient, waited and watched while Kress chopped Cath m'Lane into small, easily digestible pieces.
Kress slept in his skinthins that night, the pesticide close at hand, but he did not need it. The whites, sated, remained in the cellar, and he saw no sign of the others.
In the morning he finished the cleanup of the living room. When he was through, no trace of the struggle remained except for the broken tank.
He ate a light lunch and resumed his hunt for the missing sandkings. In full daylight it was not too difficult. The blacks had located in his rock garden, where they built a castle heavy with obsidian and quartz. The reds he found at the bottom of his long disused swimming pool, which had partially filled with wind-blown sand over the years. He saw mobiles of both colors ranging about his grounds, many of them carrying poison pellets back to their maws. Kress felt like laughing. He decided his pesticide was unnecessary. No use risking a fight when he could just let the poison do its work. Both maws should be dead by evening.
That left only the burnt-orange sandkings unaccounted for. Kress circled his estate several times, in an ever- widening spiral, but he found no trace of them. When he began to sweat in his skinthings-it was a hot, dry day-he decided it was not important. If they were out here, they were probably eating the poison pellets, as the reds and blacks were.
He crunched several sandkings underfoot, with a certain degree of satisfaction, as he walked back to the house. Inside, he removed his skinthins, settled down to a delicious meal,
and finally began to relax. Everything was under control. Two of the maws would soon be defunct, the third was safely located where he could dispose of it after it had served his purposes, and he had no doubt that he would find the fourth. As for Cath, every trace of her visit had been obliterated.
His reverie was interrupted when his view screen began to blink at him. It was Jad Rakkis, calling to brag about some cannibal worms he would bring to the war games tonight.
Kress had forgotten about that, but he recovered quickly. 'Oh, Jad, my pardons. I neglected to tell you. I grew bored with all that and got rid of the sandkings. Ugly little things. Sorry, but there'll be no party tonight.'
Rakkis was indignant. 'But what will I do with my worms?'
'Put them in a basket of fruit and send them to a loved one,' Kress said, signing off. Quickly he began calling the others. He did not need anyone arriving at his doorstep now, with the sandkings alive and infesting the estate.
As he was calling Idi Noreddian, Kress became aware of an annoying oversight. The screen began to clear, indicating that someone had answered at the other end. Kress flicked off.
Idi arrived on schedule an hour later. She was surprised to find the party had been canceled but perfectly happy to share an evening alone with Kress. He delighted her with his story of Cath's reaction to the holo they had made
together. While telling it, he managed to ascertain that she had not mentioned the prank to anyone. He nodded, satisfied, and refilled their wine glasses. Only a trickle was left. 'I'll have to get a fresh bottle,' he said. 'Come with me to my wine cellar, and help me pick out a good vintage. You've always had a better palate than I.
She went along willingly enough but balked at the top of the stairs when Kress opened the door and gestured for her to precede him. 'Where are the lights?' she asked. 'And that smell-what's that peculiar smell, Simon?'
When he shoved her, she looked briefly startled. She screamed as she tumbled down the stairs. Kress closed the door and began to nail it shut with the boards and air hammer he had left for that purpose. As he was finishing, he heard Idi groan. 'I'm hurt,' she called. 'Simon, what is this?' Suddenly she squealed, and shortly after that the screaming started.
It did not cease for hours. Kress went to his sensorium and dialed up a saucy comedy to blot it from his mind.
When he was sure she was dead, Kress flew her skimmer north to the volcanoes and discarded it. The magnalock was proving a good investment.
Odd scrabbling noises were coming from beyond the wine-cellar door the next morning when Kress went down to check things out. He listened for several uneasy moments, wondering
