Echoes

Echoes is a short story from The Byway to Freedom.

Plot

On patrol in space, the Eighth Power discover a series of audio-messages, transmitted from the planet 'Tullona' by its people's top scientist, Gavin Rassman. Believing this to be a distress-call (which it seems intended to be), they stop at that planet to investigate; but find the civilization there has already been destroyed, and all that remains is an archive of their history, sent into space immediately before the destruction.