Edward W Ludwig's "The Lonely Ones" (short story, first contact, free): Stone age man is modern man what modern man is to...

Man has looked through the Sol - all the way from Mercury to Pluto; no animal life anywhere. Now a party of 6 is on its way to Proxima Centauri to look. And they do find it there, but ... this is not what they wanted to find...

Fact sheet.

First published: Galaxy or If, July 1953.
Note: Project Gutenberg's HTML copy includes image of If's cover with the story, but attributes the story to Galaxy. ISFDB attributes it to If.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Edward W Ludwig; first contact fiction.