Short Fiction Robert Sheckley (best romantic books to read TXT) 📖

final moments, that the rain had stopped. The lightning had stopped, too. He dropped the direction finder. With the flashlight in one hand and his revolver in the other, he tried to take aim at the Quedak, who was moving, who had jumped⁠—

To Sorensen’s neck, just above the right collarbone.

Sorensen raised his hands, then lowered them again. He turned toward Drake, raising his rifle. His face was perfectly calm. He looked as though his only purpose in life was to kill Drake.

Drake fired from less than two feet away. Sorensen spun with the impact, dropped his rifle and fell.

Drake bent over him, his revolver ready. He saw that he had fired accurately. The bullet had gone in just above the right collarbone. It was a bad wound. But it had been much worse for the Quedak, who had been in the direct path of the bullet. All that was left of the Quedak was a splatter of black across Sorensen’s chest.

Drake applied hasty first aid and hoisted Sorensen to his shoulders. He wondered what he would have done if the Quedak had been standing above Sorensen’s heart, or on his throat, or on his head.

He decided it was better not to think about that.

He started back to camp, with his dog trotting along beside him.

Endnotes

Sheckley revised this story, retitling it “Shape,” for the 1954 short story collection Untouched by Human Hands. —⁠S.E. Editor ↩

Sheckley revised this story, retitling it “Untouched by Human Hands,” for the 1954 short story collection Untouched by Human Hands. —⁠S.E. Editor ↩

Colophon

Short Fiction
was compiled from short stories published between 1952 and 1960 by
Robert Sheckley.

This ebook was produced for
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and is based on a transcription produced between 2005 and 2021 by
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan, Stephen Blundell, Sankar Viswanathan, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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The cover page is adapted from
Circles in a Circle,
a painting completed in 1923 by
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