Meeting at dawn
Encounter at dawn ( English title Encounter in the Dawn , later Encounter at Dawn ) is a science fiction - short story by British writer Arthur C. Clarke , which he published 1,953th Along with the originating also from him story The Sentinel 1948 formed Encounter in the Dawn one of the literary models for 1968 published groundbreaking and style- science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey (2001: A Space Odyssey) of US filmmaker Stanley Kubrick , who co- wrote the script for the film with Clarke .
content
A small spaceship with the four crew members Captain Altman, Bertrond, Clindar and an unnamed robot lands on an earth-like planet . The crew is said to be looking for life there while the mother ship remains in orbit. For safety reasons, initially only the robot equipped with cameras is sent forward, while the three human crew members remain in the spaceship and control the robot remotely. As the robot moves towards a forest, birds fly through the air, the forest itself is teeming with smaller creatures. The robot steps into a clearing , in the middle of which is a primitive hut village surrounded by a picket fence . The humanoid villagers go about their business. The three astronauts stare in disbelief at the screen on which the robot's camera is transmitting everything, then Clindar remarks: “It might be our own planet, a hundred thousand years ago. I feel as if I've gone back in time. ”( This could be our own planet from a few hundred thousand years ago. I have the feeling that I have traveled back in time. ).
After the results of biological tests three days later had shown that the planet could be entered risk-free and without an oxygen device, Bertrond, accompanied by the robot, was the first to disembark. The other two follow another four days later. All this time they observe the inhabitants of the planet without showing themselves to them. The robot also remains hidden and films everything. During their time on the planet, astronauts receive increasingly disturbing news from Earth as an international conflict threatens to escalate there.
In order to finally get in contact with the residents, Bertrond chose one of these less frequented routes, on which the residents went hunting every day. There he is waiting. As a " gift " he has a piece of game that the robot has shot. Soon after, a resident appears, spear in hand, obviously on his way to the hunt. When he notices Bertrond, he approaches him without suspicion . Bertrond hands him the hunted animal. The resident accepts it without hesitation and calmly returns to his village. That was the first encounter between spacemen and indigenous people .
This scene is repeated every morning: Bertrond hands the game killed by the robot to “Yann”, as the resident seems to be called. He comes to all meetings alone, he doesn't seem to have told his clan about the encounter with the unknown. It remains unclear what his motivations are. Bertrond manages to communicate with Yann. The spacemen consider what the next step could be: bring Yann to the spaceship - he had already got to know the robot in the meantime and learned that it had killed the game - or to go to Yann's village first.
At sunset, Yann hears the familiar metallic voice of the robot calling for him from the jungle. At the same moment, all the villagers fall silent, nothing moves. All eyes turn to Yann, who grabs his spear and - despite the onset of darkness - leaves the village towards the jungle, where he soon meets the robot. Both walk together for a while until they meet Bertrond on the bank of a river, who sends the robot away. When Yann stands alone next to Bertrond, he suddenly feels the first signs of a selfless, completely irrational devotion to him. A feeling that Yann and his family had never felt before. Both men stand on the riverbank, one in a uniform equipped with all kinds of technology, the other clad in animal skin and armed with a spear with a flint point . There are 10,000 generations between them .
Bertrond begins to speak frantically and tells Yann that in view of the dramatic developments on earth, he has to return with Altman and Clindar and that he has no time to help him and his clan to free themselves from barbarism . Instead, he would give him some tools that would give him and his family a significant survival advantage over the other residents, including a blade and a flashlight .
Finally the spaceship appears almost noiseless, lands, a slit of light opens, Bertrond gets in and leaves the planet. Yann watches it until it's gone. He instinctively knows that the gods are gone now and that they will never come back.
reception
The first section of Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey carries the original title The Dawn of Man , in the German version of the morning of humanity , literally the dawn of man or the dawn of humanity .
"" Angels / gods with a large degree of involvement in human history are the aliens in Arthur C. Clarke's "2001" (and in the film by Stanley Kubrick), even if they do not manifest themselves at all ... "
expenditure
English original editions (selection)
Encounter in the Dawn was first published in 1953 in the June / July issue of the US science fiction magazine Amazing Stories , followed in the same year by the publication in the anthology Expedition to Earth ( Expedition zur Erde ), German title Banished in the Future , where the story was printed as one of eleven short stories under the title Expedition to Earth , or encounter at dawn .
German translation
- 1960: Meeting at dawn in the anthology Banished in the future , translator: Tony Westermayr , Goldmann's science fiction.
Web links
Individual evidence
Remarks
- ^ During November 1950 I wrote a short story about a meeting in the remote past between visitors from space and a primitive ape-man. An editor at Ballantine Books gave it the ingenious title "Expedition to Earth" when it was published in the book of that name, but I prefer "Encounter in the Dawn". However, when Harcourt, Brace and World brought out my own selection of favorites, "The Nine Billion Names of God", it was mysteriously changed to "Encounter at Dawn". ( In November 1950, I wrote a short story about a distant past meeting between visitors from space and a primitive ape-man . A Ballantine Books editor gave it the ingenious title "Expedition to Earth" when featured in the book with the same title, but my preference is "Encounter in the Dawn." However, when Harcourt, Brace and World released my own selection of favorite stories called "The Nine Billion Names of God." the title [of the short story] mysteriously changed to "Encounter at Dawn". In: Arthur C. Clarke: The Lost Worlds of 2001. The Ultimate Log of the Ultimate Trip. Signet, New York 1972, p. 50.