# Short Fiction — Chapters explained

> Chapter companions for Short Fiction by Philip K. Dick.

- [Beyond Lies the Wub](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_43_se/chapters/beyond-lies-the-wub.md): Captain Franco and his crew load a Martian wub aboard their spaceship. The wub, a large pig-like creature, speaks telepathically and pleads for its life, but Franco insists on eating it. After a philosophical discussion,
- [The Gun](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_43_se/chapters/the-gun.md): Dorle, Nasha, and Tance discover a massive automated gun on a dead planet that fires at anything airborne. After realizing the gun cannot target objects on the ground, they destroy it with hand tools and uncover a vault 
- [The Skull](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_43_se/chapters/the-skull.md): Conger, a former hunter and trader, is recruited by a mysterious Speaker to travel back in time to assassinate the Founder of the First Church, a man who has been dead for two centuries. The Speaker retrieves the Founder
- [The Defenders](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_43_se/chapters/the-defenders.md): Franks, Moss, and Taylor suspect the leadys are lying about surface conditions. They stage a confrontation, revealing the leadys are not radioactive and thus the surface may be habitable. A human party ascends, discovers
- [The Eyes Have It](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_43_se/chapters/the-eyes-have-it.md): The narrator accidentally discovers an alien invasion of Earth while reading a paperback book. He interprets common idiomatic phrases—such as 'his eyes roved about the room' and 'he put his arm around Julia'—as literal d
- [The Hanging Stranger](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_43_se/chapters/the-hanging-stranger.md): Ed Loyce discovers a dead body hanging from a lamppost in the town park, but is horrified to find that no one else seems to notice or care. As he investigates, he realizes that the town has been taken over by alien insec
- [Mr. Spaceship](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_43_se/chapters/mr-spaceship.md): In the midst of an interstellar war against the Yucconae, Commander Kramer proposes using a human brain to pilot a spaceship through the living minefields that defend Proxima Centauri. He approaches his former professor,
- [Piper in the Woods](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_43_se/chapters/piper-in-the-woods.md): Doctor Henry Harris investigates a strange condition affecting the garrison on Asteroid Y-3, where crew members are becoming catatonic and claiming to have been taught by 'the Pipers' to become plants. After interviewing
- [Second Variety](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_43_se/chapters/second-variety.md): Major Hendricks, Klaus, and Tasso discuss the nature of the killer machines and the possibility that they have already infiltrated the American command bunker. After Klaus kills Rudi, revealing him to be a Second Variety
- [Tony and the Beetles](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_43_se/chapters/tony-and-the-beetles.md): Tony Rossi wakes on a colony planet to news of a major space battle between Earth and the Pas-udeti (the 'beetles'). His father is furious about the war, while Tony feels conflicted. He goes into the city of Karnet to me
- [The Variable Man](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_43_se/chapters/the-variable-man.md): In a future where Earth is locked in a war against the Centaurian Empire, the greatest minds of the Terran Federation are baffled by a statistical anomaly: a man from the past, Thomas Cole, who defies all prediction and 
- [I](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_43_se/chapters/i.md): Security Commissioner Reinhart reviews the statistical odds of war against Centaurus, pushes for mobilization, and learns that a man from the past has been brought forward in time, causing the S.R.B. prediction machines 
- [II](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_43_se/chapters/ii.md): Thomas Cole, a fixer from the past, is transported to a future New York via a time bubble. He encounters children in a park, offers to fix a broken vidsender in exchange for food, and later evades authorities after his a
- [III](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_43_se/chapters/iii.md): Commissioner Reinhart and Peter Sherikov discuss the crisis caused by the variable man from the past, whose presence has disrupted the S.R.B. machines' predictions. Sherikov captures Thomas Cole in the Albertine Mountain
- [IV](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_43_se/chapters/iv.md): Security Commissioner Reinhart learns from Joseph Dixon that the variable man, Thomas Cole, is still alive and has been helping physicist Peter Sherikov complete the Icarus bomb. Reinhart mobilizes Security forces to rai
- [Beyond the Door](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_43_se/chapters/beyond-the-door.md): Larry gives Doris a cuckoo clock, which she adores, but he resents it. The clock seems to have a will of its own, favoring Doris and her lover Bob while defying Larry. After Doris leaves with Bob, Larry grows increasingl
- [The Crystal Crypt](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_43_se/chapters/the-crystal-crypt.md): The last Terran ship leaving Mars is forced to land on Deimos for inspection by Martian authorities, who are searching for three saboteurs who destroyed an entire Martian city. Among the passengers, Bob Thacher deduces t

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