Earth explorers find a habitated planet a few light years out, have problems with the locals

[Wils]

Some paperback novel I read almost 10 years ago had earth explorers able to travel out several lightyears using some hyperdrives or such. Most extinct civilizations they'd discovered had already succumbed to war, disease or fossil fuel abuse, but finally they found a planet with habitants on it. The planet's lifestyle similarities included telephones lines, roads, cars and squat little people who spoke a gutteral language undiscernable to the explorers. One local male decided he would try to capture the explorers for exploitation (maybe put in a planet zetar zoo?). In star trek fashion our earth heros contacted their mothership which launched an ear splitting audio assault, allowing them to escape. Once back on their ship they then encountered some kind of planetary lifeform that was refusing to let them leave. I forget the rest and really really want to reread this saga again! Only thing I can remember is that the author was not a bradbury or asimov, and the book was probably a few hundred pages long.