When people talk about getting away from it all, theyare usually thinking about our great open spaces outwest. But to science fiction writers, that would bepractically in the heart of Times Square. When a manof the future wants solitude he picks a slab of rockfloating in space four light years east of Andromeda.Here is a gentle little story about a man who soughtthe solitude of such a location. And who did he takealong for company? None other than Charles the Robot.
Mark Rogers was a prospector,and he went to theasteroid belt looking for radioactivesand rare metals. Hesearched for years, never findingmuch, hopping from fragment tofragment. After a time he settledon a slab of rock half a milethick.
Rogers had been born old, andhe didn't age much past a point.His face was white with the pallorof space, and his hands shook alittle. He called his slab of rockMartha, after no girl he had everknown.
He made a little strike, enoughto equip Martha with an airpump and a shack, a few tons ofdirt and some water tanks, and arobot. Then he settled back andwatched the stars.
The robot he bought was astandard-model all-aroundworker, with built-in memory anda thirty-word vocabulary. Markadded to that, bit by bit. He wassomething of a tinkerer, and heenjoyed adapting his environmentto himself.
At first, all the robot couldsay was "Yes, sir," and "No,sir." He could state simple problems:"The air pump is laboring,sir." "The corn is budding, sir."He could perform a satisfactorysalutation: "Good morning, sir."
Mark changed that. He eliminatedthe "sirs" from the robot'svocabulary; equality was the ruleon Mark's hunk of rock. Then hedubbed the robot Charles, after afather he had never known.
As the years passed, the airpump began to labor a little as itconverted the oxygen in the planetoid'srock into a breathable atmosphere.The air seeped intospace, and the pump worked alittle harder, supplying more.
The crops continued to growon the tamed black dirt of theplanetoid. Looking up, Markcould see the sheer blackness ofthe river of space, the floatingpoints of the stars. Around him,under him, overhead, masses ofrock drifted, and sometimes thestarlight glinted from their blacksides. Occasionally, Mark caughta glimpse of Mars or Jupiter.Once he thought he saw Earth.
Mark began to tape new responsesinto Charles. He addedsimple responses to cue words.When he said, "How does itlook?" Charles would answer,"Oh, pretty good, I guess."
At first the answers were whatMark had been answering himself,in the long dialogue heldover the years. But, slowly, hebegan to build a new personalityinto Charles.
Mark had always been suspiciousand scornful of women.But for some reason he didn'ttape the same suspicion intoCharles. Charles' outlook wasquite different.
"What do you think of girls?"Mark would ask, sitting on apacking case outside the shack,after the chores were done.
"Oh, I don't know. You haveto find the right one." The robotwould reply dutifully, repeatingwhat had been put on its tape.
"I never saw a good one yet,"Mark would say.
"Well, that's not fair. Perhapsyou didn't look long enough.There's a girl in the world forevery man."
"You're a romantic!" Markwould say scornfully. The robotwould pause—a built-in pause—andchuckle a carefully constructedchuckle.
"I dreamed of a girl namedMartha once," Charles wouldsay. "Maybe if I would havelooked, I would have found her."
And then it would be bedtime.Or perhaps Mark would wantmore convers