Rescue Party
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"Rescue Party" is a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, first published in Astounding Science Fiction in May 1946. It was his first story that he sold, though not the first actually published. It was republished in Sir Arthur’s second collection, Reach for Tomorrow.
[edit] Quotes
Arthur C. Clarke, in one of the forewords to this story in a collection of short stories, humorously remarked, "People who tell me this is their favorite story of mine get a cooler and cooler reception as the years go by."
[edit] Plot summary
The story begins with a ship full of aliens visiting Earth only hours before the sun will explode, destroying the planet. The mission of the aliens is to try and save as many people and as much of the culture as possible. Normally the galactic civilization does surveys of planets every one million years for new species, but the human race did not exist the last time the survey was done – four hundred thousand years before. However, radio signals had been detected on a planet 200 light years away, indicating intelligent life had arisen.
To the aliens' surprise, the planet seems to be empty of intelligent life, except for the remnants of a civilization. While the aliens explore the old cities, we find out that it's typical for species to take thousands of years to develop from radio to space travel.
At the end of the story, the aliens find a communication tower beaming into space. They follow the beam and find an enormous fleet of human ships, powered by rockets. The aliens, equipped with faster-than-light ships, are amazed that humans "dared" to cross interstellar space with rockets, having done so only 200 years after inventing radio.
The memorable final lines of the story have the aliens musing about the nature of human civilization and the future of the humans when they learn about the existence of other intelligent life, given their rapid advancement and apparent determination. The last sentence hints the outcome wasn't favorable to the aliens.
