# Short Fiction — Chapters explained

> Chapter companions for Short Fiction by Robert Sheckley.

- [Final Examination](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/final-examination.md): An alien voice announces that judgment of Earth will occur in five days. The narrator, Mr. Ostersen, goes to work despite the impending end, witnessing chaotic crowds and a sudden global outpouring of peace, charity, and
- [Proof of the Pudding](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/proof-of-the-pudding.md): The last man on Earth, a former space-pilot, carves an epitaph into a cave wall after a devastating war has wiped out all life. He discovers he has the power to create anything he imagines, but struggles with the meaning
- [Warrior Race](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/warrior-race.md): Fannia and Donnaught, stranded on the planet Cascella after running out of fuel, attempt to refuel from a Galactic Survey cache. They discover the Cascellans have a unique social structure where suicide is honorable and 
- [Cost of Living](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/cost-of-living.md): Carrin, a man haunted by the recent suicide of his friend Miller, spends his day off preparing for a visit from an Avignon Electric finance man. Despite the luxury of his automated home, he cannot shake a vague fear. He 
- [The Leech](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/the-leech.md): An alien leech, a spore-like organism that consumes matter and energy, drifts through space and lands on Earth. Professor Micheals, during his resting week, discovers it in a ditch when his neighbor Frank Conners shows h
- [Writing Class](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/writing-class.md): Eddie McDermott arrives late to Professor Carner's writing class, where Carner instructs students to avoid clichés in describing alien worlds and creatures, advocating for understated and original descriptions. Eddie gro
- [Watchbird](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/watchbird.md): The chapter explores the development and deployment of watchbirds, machines designed to prevent murder by detecting brain waves and chemical changes in potential killers. As the watchbirds begin to operate, they expand t
- [Ask a Foolish Question](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/ask-a-foolish-question.md): Various beings from across the universe journey to the legendary Answerer, a machine built by an ancient race that knew all truths, hoping to have their deepest questions answered. A human scientist and an old biologist 
- [Warm](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/warm.md): Anders, guided by a mysterious inner voice, experiences a radical perceptual shift that allows him to see through the conventional patterns and gestalts of human life. He perceives people, objects, and even his own relat
- [Diplomatic Immunity](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/diplomatic-immunity.md): Colonel Cercy and Professor Darrig confront an alien Ambassador who has landed on Earth to announce that Earth must join a galactic empire. The Ambassador reveals that a signal is automatically broadcast to his people as
- [The Hour of Battle](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/the-hour-of-battle.md): Earth prepares for an alien telepathic invasion by building a space fleet equipped with the Attison Detector, a device that monitors brain wave patterns. Three soldiers—Edwardson, Cassel, and Morse—wait in their ship, gr
- [Beside Still Waters](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/beside-still-waters.md): Mark Rogers, an aging prospector, lives alone on an asteroid he calls Martha, with only a robot he has named Charles for company. Over the years, Mark programs Charles with a personality opposite to his own—calm, idealis
- [Keep Your Shape](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/keep-your-shape.md): Pid the Pilot leads the twenty-first Grom expedition to a green planet, where twenty previous missions have vanished. After landing and destroying their ship, Pid struggles with the rigid caste system and the lure of Sha
- [One Man's Poison](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/one-man-s-poison.md): Two stranded space miners, Hellman and Casker, run out of food and land on a barren, mountainous planet. They discover a warehouse filled with unknown goods and use a Helg-Aloombrigian dictionary to try to find something
- [Death Wish](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/death-wish.md): The crew of the space freighter Queen Dierdre—Captain Somers, engineer Watkins, and navigator Rajcik—face a dire emergency when the ship's engines malfunction, leaving them stranded. As tensions rise, Watkins anthropomor
- [Forever](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/forever.md): Charles Dennison, inventor of an immortality serum, is captured by a secret organization called the Undertakers, who have been suppressing dangerous inventions for centuries under the guise of protecting humanity. They i
- [The Sweeper of Loray](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/the-sweeper-of-loray.md): Professor Carver and his bodyguard Fred visit the primitive planet Loray to observe its natives. Fred claims to have seen a miraculous healing serum called sersee, which the medicine man Deg uses to heal a wounded hunter
- [Prospector's Special](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/prospector-s-special.md): Tom Morrison, a prospector on Venus, is warned by the robot mail carrier Williams 4 about the dangers of his quest. Despite receiving letters about his debts and a plea from his love Janie to return, Morrison pushes deep
- [Meeting of the Minds](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/meeting-of-the-minds.md): The Quedak, a remnant of a once-great alien race, awakens on a desolate planet and stows away aboard a human spaceship. After a perilous journey to Earth, it evades decontamination and encounters a rat in a cargo yard. T
- [I](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/part-ii-i.md): The schooner arrives at the remote island of Vuanu, delivering supplies to a treasure-hunting expedition led by William Sorensen and Dan Drake. After a tense passage through the reef, the skipper and mate unload cargo, i
- [II](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/part-ii-ii.md): Strange animal attacks escalate on Vuanu as Edward Eakins is attacked by a mouse, Sorensen and Al Cable are herded by a cassowary, anteater, and wild pig, and Dan Drake's dog Oro turns hostile after being stung by a scor
- [III](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/part-ii-iii.md): The expedition arms itself and prepares to search for Drake, who returns unharmed. They discuss the alien bug's ability to control animals and possibly humans. Eakins volunteers to radio for help from the ketch but is at
- [IV](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/part-ii-iv.md): After the Quedak's attack, the expedition is trapped on the beach with their ketch damaged. Drake and Sorensen plan a defense while the Quedak, speaking through Eakins, explains its collective nature and mission to absor
- [V](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/part-ii-v.md): Drake and the men realize the Quedak controls animals via radio signals. They discover they can locate the Quedak using a radio direction finder, but their transmitter is broken, preventing them from jamming his signal. 
- [VI](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/part-ii-vi.md): Drake attempts to repair the damaged transmitter while the group barricades themselves in the copra shed. The Quedak, speaking through Eakins, issues an ultimatum: join the Quedak Cooperation or be killed one by one each
- [VII](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/part-ii-vii.md): During a violent electrical storm, Drake and his team are besieged by a swarm of venomous creatures controlled by the Quedak. The lightning temporarily jams the Quedak's radio control, allowing the animals to revert to n
- [Endnotes](https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/endnotes.md): This chapter contains editorial notes indicating that Robert Sheckley revised two stories, retitling them 'Shape' and 'Untouched by Human Hands' for his 1954 collection Untouched by Human Hands.

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