re: #4 Tiny Alien Kitties are Watching You

So we would get to watch them all die?

Joan Vinge’s View from a Height features a “bubble girl” with an autoimmune disease that precludes human contact. She is sent out on a one-way scientific mission far above the plane of the solar system:

…I looked out into the starfields that lie on every side. Even with my own poor, unaugmented senses there’s so much more to see out here, unimpeded by atmosphere or dust, undominated by any sun’s glare. The brilliance of the Milky Way, the depths of star and nebula and farthest galaxy breathlessly suspended … as I am. The realization that I’m lost for eternity in an uncharted sea.

Strangely, although that thought aroused a very powerful emotion when it struck me, it wasn’t a negative one at all: It was from another scale of values entirely; like the universe itself. It was as if the universe itself stretched out its finger to touch me. And in touching me, singling me out, it only heightened my awareness of my own insignificance.

That was somehow very comforting. When you confront the absolute indifference of magnitudes and vistas so overwhelming, the swollen ego of your self-important suffering is diminished… .

Thirty-five years after it was written, the story has retained its power. If you haven’t read it, I recommend seeking it out; if you have, why not read it again?