# Let the Ants Try explained — Short Fiction

> Chapter companion for Short Fiction by Frederik Pohl.

## What happens

Salva Gordy and John de Terry travel 40 million years back in time to introduce ant queens into the primordial Coal Measure forest, hoping to create an alien race that might unite humanity. Upon returning to the present, they find a world dominated by intelligent, man-sized ants. Gordy is captured and forced to reassemble his time machine, but the ants betray him, nearly killing him. He escapes back to the ancient forest, only to discover the ants have built their own time machine and are hunting him. Gordy realizes his plan has backfired: the ants have prevented humanity from ever rising.

## Themes in this chapter

### Technology and Dehumanization

Gordy's time machine, intended as a gift, becomes a tool for the ants to study and nearly destroy him, highlighting technology's capacity to dehumanize and backfire.

### Survival and Adaptation

The ants adapt to their new environment over 40 million years, evolving intelligence and building their own time machine, while Gordy struggles to survive their hostile world.

### Alienation and Identity

Gordy's hope that a common alien enemy would unite humanity is dashed; instead, he becomes an alien in his own creation, isolated and hunted by the ants.

## Character check-ins

### Salva Gordy

Gordy creates the ant race by planting queens in the Coal Measure forest, is captured by the evolved ants, forced to rebuild his time machine, and barely escapes. He grapples with the guilt of annihilating humanity.

### John de Terry

De Terry accompanies Gordy on the time journey, helps plant the ant queens, and is later killed by the evolved ants in the future.

## Key lines

> He had made a mistake, he and de Terry; there weren’t any doubts left at all.

Gordy finally admits that their plan to create the ants was a catastrophic error.

_This moment marks Gordy's full realization of his failure._

> I gave the world to the ants, right here. I can take it back.

Gordy believes he can undo his mistake by destroying the ant queens before they evolve.

_Shows Gordy's desperate attempt to reverse the timeline._

> Of course, the ants had infinite time to work in. Time enough to build a machine after the pattern of his own—and time to realize what they had to do to him, to insure their own race safety.

Gordy realizes the ants have used their vast temporal resources to replicate his time machine and hunt him down.

_Highlights the ants' superior adaptation and the irony of Gordy's gift being turned against him._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_18_se/chapters/let-the-ants-try
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_18_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_18_se/chapters