Många år sedan läste jag en kortfattad historia om mänskligheten som söker i galaxen, i hopp om att hitta ett intelligent, icke-mänskligt liv.
"Final Encounter" av Harry Harrison , först publicerad i < em> Galaxy Magazine , april 1964 , tillgängligt på Internetarkivet . Tidigare identifierat som svaret på den här frågan .
Efter många årtusenden, på den motsatta sidan av galaxen, tror de att de äntligen hittat en främmande art, som har gjort samma uppdrag. Senare avslöjar DNA-analys att den förmodade utomjordiska rasen faktiskt härstammar från mänskligheten, men utvecklades annorlunda medan man gick motsatt vägen runt galaxen."The galactic core explains partially what must have happened," Gulyas said. "It is thousands of light-years in diameter and over 10,000 degrees in temperature. We have explored its fringes. No ship could penetrate it or even approach too closely because of the dust clouds that surround it. So we have expanded outwards, slowly circling the rim of the galaxy, moving away from Earth. If we stopped to think about it we should have realized that mankind was moving the other way too, in the opoposite direction around the wheel."
"And sometime we would have to meet," Liem said. "Now I greet you, brothers. And I am sad, because I know what this means."
"We are alone," Hautamaki said, looking at the massed trillions of stars. "We have closed the circle and found only ourselves. The galaxy is ours, but we are alone." He turned about not realizing that Liem, the golden alien—the man—had turned at the same time in the same manner.
De inledningsvis drar slutsatsen att mänskligheten är ensam i universum, men vänd sedan till Andromeda-galaxen och säg något som "Nej, vi är ensamma i denna galax".
"It is certain then," Hautamaki said, "we are alone in the galaxy."
"Alone in this galaxy."