#robert scheckley

[thehauntedrocket]

Vintage Magazine - Amazing Stories (Dec1953-Jan1954)

[paperbackben]

Can You Feel Anything When I Do This

[paperbackben]

Robert Sheckley

[scificovers]

Front and back to the The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley, 1960. Unknown cover artist.

[mtonksuk]

Alone on his planet, which is neither large nor small, but exactly the right size, Answerer waits. He cannot help the people who come to him, for even Answerer has restrictions. He can answer only valid questions. Universe? Life? Death? Purple? Eighteen? Partial truths, half-truths, little bits of the great question. But Answerer, alone, mumbles the questions to himself, the true questions, which no one can understand. How could they understand the true answers? The questions will never be asked, and Answerer remembers something his builders knew and forgot. In order to ask a question you must already know most of the answer.

My google-fu failed me yesterday while I was doing a bit of research for the Casebook series. It reminded me of Robert Sheckley's short story, Ask A Foolish Question (from Science Fiction Stories 1953). Above is the end of the story; the whole is well worth a read.