"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 worshipped 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 him 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, then stopped in front of a large plastic tank. An aquarium, Kress thought.
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 tinted scarlet by wan red light. Rocks: basalt and quartz and granite. In each corner of the tank stood a castle.
Kress blinked and peered and corrected himself; actually, there were only three castles standing. The fourth leaned, a crumbled, broken ruin. The three others were crude but intact, carved of stone and sand. Over their battlements and through their rounded porticoes tiny creatures climbed and scrambled. Kress pressed his face against the plastic.