# Professor Carver — Short Fiction character guide

> Professor Carver in Short Fiction by Robert Sheckley.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Carver

**First appearance:** 0000-final-examination

## Snapshot

An Earth anthropologist who smoothly claims to be the highest medicine man in his own country, bargaining with a Lorayan priest for the sacred, scarce sersee juice.

## Who they are

Carver negotiates with Deg, the village medicine man, for sersee juice—the red-berry elixir that means life to the people of Loray—while Fred fumes and brandishes beads and knives. Carver's diplomatic fiction, that he is a fellow holy man and it is Deg's priestly duty to share, reveals a scholar willing to bend truth for a sample he hopes to synthesize on Earth. His patient, almost reverent persistence against Deg's gentle refusals anchors the story's quiet conflict between need, faith, and scarcity.

## In the story

### [The Sweeper of Loray](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/the-sweeper-of-loray)

An anthropologist who believes in the inherent inferiority of non-Terrans; he abandons Fred to protect his thesis.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_48_se/characters/professor_carver
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_48_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_48_se/characters