Jag har kanske stött på denna novell i Asimovs Science Fiction tidningen. Människokännare möter en utomjordisk rymdfarkost. Utlänningar är försiktigt vänliga, men berätta sedan för människorna om en gammal, strålande och grym race av varelser som erövrade och förstörde varje civilisation de stött på. De blev äntligen besegrade och förstörda, eller så var det tänkt, men deras hemvärld hittades aldrig. Det visar sig att denna kraftfulla, onda ras faktiskt var jordens.
Det är "All vägen tillbaka" , en kortfattad historia av Michael Shaara ; först publicerad i Förvånande Science Fiction , juli 1952 , tillgänglig på Internetarkiv (historien börjar på sidan 48 ); texten finns också tillgänglig här . Utlänningarna kallar den antika rasen Antha:
"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.
"It was only after many years, when a Galactic invented the most dangerous weapon of all, that we won. The 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."
Roymer had finished. He looked at the Earthmen out of grave, tired old eyes.
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