A arma sem estrondo por Robert Sheckley .
De uma pergunta muito semelhante:
An astronaut lands on an alien world armed with an experimental weapon that disintegrates matter in a cone shape in front of it. However, the weapon makes no noise or flash, nothing. The alien planet is filled with aggressive creatures that attack him instantly.
Flash forward, and the astronaut is picked up -- my friend couldn't recall if the astronaut was rescued from a mishap or lifted off the planet after a field test of weapon. The landing party locate the astronaut using this fancy, high-tech weapon as a tool to hammer tent stakes, having fashioned "traditional" weapons to deal with the aggressive natives: spears, knives, etc. The astronaut explains that, although the gun functioned perfectly, it proved worthless as a psychological deterrent because it didn't make a boom or a nifty light show. Although the gun was great at wounding or killing the animals and primitives, it did nothing to scare them off because they lacked the reasoning skills to equate the killing or wounding of their numbers with anything he (the astronaut) was doing to them.
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