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Story about a probe sent outside the solar system, awaiting a signal from it


I'm trying to remember the name of the short story, or TV episode, where the plot is that it's set at a mission control centre on Earth somewhere, and they are awaiting the signal from a probe which has been sent to a world outside our solar system.


The twist of it is that one of the people there is an alien from that world; they saw the probe, and destroyed it and came looking for us after they realised it wasn't hostile, and are offering to swap their FTL technology for our probe technology if the signal is received etc.


Any ideas what this was?



Answer



This is almost certainly "Like Banquo's Ghost" by Larry Niven
from the short story collection Shape of Space (1969)

larryniven.net
First appeared in Worlds of If, September 1968. A short story about the first meeting between humanity and an alien race that destroys Earth's slower-than-light probe, and then arrives for a visit in faster-than-light ships. Is it the dawn of a new era or the first shot in the War of the Worlds?"

I honestly don't know if it was ever adapted for TV.



"Is that where you shot it down?"

"Yes, at perihelion," said Butch. "How were we to know it was not hostile? We would not have believed it was possible at all. An instrument package, with no external guidance, finding its way over such a distance!" He stood up. "A remarkable achievement! Remarkable! To have done so much with so little!
"Thanks," I said. Thanks for the pat on the head."



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