# Mal Shaff — Short Fiction character guide

> Mal Shaff in Short Fiction by Clifford D. Simak.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Steadily Mal Shaff

**First appearance:** 0000-hellhounds-of-the-cosmos

## Snapshot

Steadily Mal Shaff is a man whose steadiness masks a mutant's quiet knowledge that the human race fears and hunts anyone who deviates from the norm.

## Who they are

Shaff stands apart from the quarantine panic and the commission's secret hormone research, seeing the whole affair as the latest chapter in humanity's long habit of stoning lepers and smothering madmen. He knows he is being watched, double-checked, and quietly sentenced to exile, and he has chosen a different exile of his own. His calm, unbitter voice reframes the story's central fear: that a mutant is human first, and that the race's history is itself the history of long mutancy.

## Relationships

### [Ouglat](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/ouglat)

_rivalry_

Mal Shaff and Ouglat are antagonists, with their interactions marked by conflict or opposition.

### [Ouglat](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/ouglat)

_rivalry_

Mal Shaff and Ouglat are antagonists, with their interactions marked by conflict or opposition.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/mal_shaff
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- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters