Since SuSE's rpm2cpio cannot be used to extract files from a version 4 RPM (and alien uses rpm2cpio so this option is out), is there a way to extract a single file from an RPM without installing the whole package?

Use http://volker.orcon.net.nz/soft/rpmdump to install rpm 3.0.5 from SuSE 7.0 CD 1 directory unsorted, and then either use its rpm2cpio, or use rpmdump again (with the rpm binary 3.0.5) to extract the version 4 rpm package you wnat that one file of. Volker