Bloodhype
BLOODHYPE
Alan Dean Foster
A Del Rey® Book
THE BALLANTINE PUBLISHING GROUP * NEW YORK
Contents
Title Page
Bloodhype
About the Author
Books by Alan Dean Foster
Other books by Ballantine Books
Copyright
I eat, therefore I am.
Such was the extent of the Vom’s consciousness.
This had not always been so, but at the moment there was no way the Vom could become aware of it. The mechanical process of remembering required energy the Vom did not have to spare. All of the tiny amount of radiant energy from the system’s sun that the Vom could convert was needed to preserve the life-sense.
To do this the Vom had assumed a special configuration. At present it varied in thickness from a few millimeters to several microns. It had done this out of necessity, millennia ago. How many millennia? The Vom did not know or remember.
It couldn’t spare the energy.
The System hadn’t always been dead. At one time this planet had harbored a modestly successful ecosystem: plants and animals from the one-celled to the very complex; vertebrates, invertebrates, things warm- and coldblooded, gymnosperms, fungi, lichens, fliers, burrowers, crawlers, runners and swimmers. It was ruled by an undistinguished if moderately intelligent race. It had begun to die when the Vom arrived.
As to the method of arrival, the Vom could recall neither when nor how. Dimly it could remember a state of former greatness, of which its present self was less than a shadow. In that state it had dominated a thousand systems.
Arriving in this one, it had toyed with the local dominants. Its persistent 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.