"Foster, Alan Dean - Flinx - Bloodhype" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

and strenuous attempts at achieving mental assimilation with another
life?form failed, as it had failed a hundred thousand times before. That
didn't keep the Vom from trying.

The race resisted with violence. It was consumed. The planet was rich in
life?force of more primitive kind. Having absorbed that of the most
intelligent beings, the Vom began on those less so. It worked its voracious
way slowly through the ecosystem, down through the simple plants and fungi
and even to the bacteria and viroids. The Vom was frighteningly efficient.
It ate until the globe was scoured clean, clean. Then nothing moved on its
surface or in its seas except wind, water, and the Vom.

Sated, the Vom rested for a long time. Then, using its always successful
ploy of contacting another intelligent race and taking control of the
curious vessels that would come to investigate, it broadcast into the space
around it. Once carried by unwilling servitors to a new planet, it would
begin the cycle of feeding anew.

But this time the Vom had waited too long. The race it contacted came, but
they were strong?stronger than any the Vom had ever encountered. Its mental
control wavered. For the first time in its well?ordered existence, the Vom
panicked. It destroyed all aboard the approaching ships. A fatal error. The
race was made aware of the true nature of the horror that had contacted it.
The next time, it sent robot warships with a single prepared Guardian. One
of their most powerful and capable minds, the Guardian was not understood
even by its own kind. The Vom now tried to attract the ships of another
species, but space?going races were scarce in this section of the galaxy.
Those few who did send ships were warned away or destroyed by the robot
watchers. As its stored energy was drained by these efforts the Vom grew
progressively weaker, shrinking in power and ability. No longer necessary,
many of the robot warships were recalled by their builders. There was a
great war with another race tormenting the center of the galaxy.

Almost, the Vom escaped. A wild photonic storm tore through that section of
space. The few remaining robot controls were incapacitated. Even the
Guardian itself was weakened. The Vom drew some strength from the strange
life?forms that rode the storm, but .... not enough. In utter terror the
Vom discovered that every space?going race within its reduced sphere of
influence had died off or perished in the storm. Its mental collapse was
hastened by hopelessness.

Now the Vom had plenty of time to reflect on its mistakes. It had used the
planet too thoroughly, scoured it too clean of life. The system had been
over employed. Enough should have been left to reproduce and maintain a
reasonable ecosystem, for just such an emergency. But the Vom had glutted
itself thoroughly. Not a living cell had existed on the planet for a
thousand years. Great as it was, it could not create life.

So, one by one, the higher functions were shut down, lost, as the great
organic factory that was the Vom ran down, until only the barest flicker of