Med en stor skillnad låter din beskrivning mycket som "All the way back" , en kort historia av Michael Shaara , Pulitzers prisvinnande författare av Killer Angels . Shaaras "All Way Back", publiceras först i Förvånande Science Fiction , Juli 1952 (tillgänglig på Internetarkiv ), svarade på den här gamla frågan och this one och this one . Texten till historien är tillgänglig här .
Om det är historien du letar efter kan boken du läste den vara Shaaras samling < em> Soldier Boy , eller antologin Galactic Empires eller Galactic Empires Volume One (redigerad av Brian W. Aldiss) eller Möten eller Monsters (redigerad av Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg och Charles G. Waugh ), eller Världen vänd upp och ner (redigerad av Eric Flint , Jim Baen och David Drake).
I kortfattad historia möter några mänskliga astronauter i rymden några utlänningar.
Ja.
Utlänningar frågar dem vart de kommer ifrån, och astronauterna berättar gärna dem från jorden, och sedan där jorden ligger, i Vintergatan.
Det är den del du kommer ihåg fel om vi pratar om samma historia:
Utlänningar sedan berätta för dem en historia om hur länge sedan det fanns ett enormt intergalaktiskt krig, där alla tävlingar måste komma ihop för att besegra en ras som var otroligt lysande men också blodtörstig och ond."It is surprising," Roymer went on, "that your home world is in the desert. We had thought that there were no habitable worlds—"
"The desert?"
"Yes. The region of the galaxy from which you have come is that which we call the desert. It is an area almost entirely devoid of planets. Would you mind telling me which star is your home?"
Cohn stiffened.
"I'm afraid our government would not permit us to disclose any information concerning our race."
Ja, förutom att det inte var inter galaktiskt:
"The news of what happened to the Apectans set the Galactic peoples up in arms, but it was not until the Antha attacked a Federation world that we finally moved against them. It was the greatest war in the history of Life.
"You will perhaps understand how great a people the Antha were when I tell you that they alone, unaided, dependent entirely upon their own resources, fought the rest of the Galactics, and fought them to a standstill. As the terrible years went by we lost whole races and planets—like this one, which was one the Antha destroyed—and yet we could not defeat them.
Den blodtörstiga rasen blev till slut besegrad
"It was only after many years, when a Galactic invented the most dangerous weapon of all, that we won. That invention—of which only the Galactic Council has knowledge—enabled us to turn the suns of the Antha into novae, at long range. One by one we destroyed the Antha worlds. We hunted them through all the planets of the desert; for the first time in history the edict of the Federation was death, death for an entire race. At last there were no longer any habitable worlds where the Antha had been. We burned their worlds, and ran them down in space. Thirty thousand years ago, the civilization of the Antha perished."
Men ett av deras fartyg kom undan och utlänningarna har jaktat universum för sina efterkommande i tusentals år. Och dessa ättlingar är oss, människor.
"Are you sure you got all of them?"
"No. Some surely must have escaped. There were too many in space, and space is without limits."
Jansen wanted to know: "Have any of them been heard of since?"
Roymer's smile left him as the truth came out. "No. Not until now."
Utlänningar berättar för astronauterna att de är ledsna, men de måste döda dem,
There were only a few more seconds. He gave them time to understand. He could not help telling them he was sorry, he even apologized. And then he sent the order with his mind.
The Antha died quickly and silently, without pain.
och sedan går de till jorden för att avsluta oss.
De skulle om de kunde, men:
The reports were on his desk and he regarded them with a wry smile. There was indeed no way to trace them back. They had no charts, only a regular series of course-check coordinates which were pre-set on their home planet and which were not decipherable. Even at this stage of their civilization they had already anticipated the consequences of having their ship fall into alien hands. And this although they lived in the desert.
[. . . .]
We can wait, he thought. Gradually, one by one, they will come out of the desert, and when they come we will be waiting. Perhaps one day we will follow one back and destroy their world, and perhaps before then we will find a way to save them.