Search: space traveler sees insect as metaphor

[mattdick]

I read this in the 1980s. I think it was a short story. It involved a speace traveler who tells someone his story. The traveler was lost in space and had a weird encounter, the end of which resulted in his being transported magically/hyperspcially back to Earth. The person he was telling this to had just picked up a snail (or bug or something) from the middle of the sidewalk and had moved the creature to a more suitable/safer place. the space traveler was telling his story to indicate that he felt that his transportation back to Earth was similar--that a vastly more intelligent/more powerful alien had looked him over and intuited that Earth was the best place to return him to.

Any memories of this?

Thanks!
Matt

[chrispenycate]

It's a Larry Niven short story, and I think it's "Passerby" from the collection "inconstant moon" (although I'm not dead certain of that).

Comes back to edit. Actually, I think it was from the collection "All the myriad ways". And reprinted in "N-Space".

[mattdick]

chrispenycate... thank you!

I am certain you are correct, I definitely read it during my Niven phase, and All the Myriad Ways was certainly a favorite.

I will now go dig through some boxes from high school and see if I still have my copy. I'll be interested to know if my memory of it was accurate... at least I know it was accurate enough to get me your help.

Can't thank you enough!

Regards,
Matt

[PaulMmn]

There was an episode of Babylon 5 that ended with a similar metaphor-- the Babylon 5 station master's girlfriend (Catherine) is scouting a planet that she'd been warned (by an alien, G'Kar, on the Babylon 5 station) was not a safe neighborhood. She encounters a vastly technologically superior spacecraft that drains the power from her ship. G'Kar had contacted his homeworld to send a ship to assist, and the girlfriend is rescued. At the end of the episode the girlfriend asks G'Kar what she'd encountered.
.
Catherine Sakai: While I was out there, I saw something. What was it?

G'Kar: [pointing to a nearby flower] What is this? [upon closer inspection, an insect is visible]

Catherine: An ant.

G'Kar: "Ant"!

Catherine: So much gets shipped up from Earth on commercial transports, it's hard to keep them out.

[As Catherine is talking, G'Kar carefully picks up the ant.]

G'Kar: I have just picked it up on the tip of my glove. If I put it down again [replacing the ant on the flower] and it asks another ant, "What was that?" …how would it explain? There are things in the universe billions of years older than either of our races. They are vast, timeless. And if they are aware of us at all, it is as little more than ants…and we have as much chance of communicating with them as an ant has with us. We know. We've tried. And we've learned we can either stay out from underfoot, or be stepped on.

Catherine: That's it? That's all you know?

G'Kar: Yes. They are a mystery. And I am both terrified and reassured to know that there are still wonders in the universe…that we have not yet explained everything. Whatever they are, Ms. Sakai, they walk near Sigma 957. They must walk there alone.

[mattdick]

Wow, that seems like infringement.

I read the book that the makers of Alien had to pay money for infringing, and it was not as close as what you describe.