{"id":2023,"date":"2019-02-28T09:37:08","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T15:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/captivatedchat.com\/?p=2023"},"modified":"2021-06-14T10:02:59","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T15:02:59","slug":"beside-still-waters-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/captivatedchat.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/28\/beside-still-waters-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Beside Still Waters, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Robert Sheckley<\/p>\n

Adapted to chat story format by Captivated Chat<\/p>\n

Me<\/div>
I wonder why you came to this asteroid belt?\n<\/div><\/div>
Mark<\/div>
Looking for rare metals. I searched for years, Charles, hopping from fragment to fragment until I settled here.\n<\/div><\/div>
Me<\/div>
You’ve said you had been born old, and didn’t age much past a point.\n<\/div><\/div>
Mark<\/div>
I have said that. But how am I to judge?\n<\/div><\/div>
Me<\/div>
Why did you call this rock Martha, was it named after a girl?\n<\/div><\/div>
Mark<\/div>
Yes, but no girl I have ever known. It was after I made a little strike, enough to equip Martha with an air pump and a shack, a few tons of dirt and some water tanks, and a robot.\n<\/div><\/div>
Me<\/div>
Me!\n<\/div><\/div>
Mark<\/div>
Yes, and then I settled back and watched the stars. The robot I bought was a standard-model all-around worker, with built-in memory and a thirty-word vocabulary.\n<\/div><\/div>
Me<\/div>
You\u2019ve added to that, bit by bit.\n<\/div><\/div>
Mark<\/div>
Sure! I tinker around. At first all you could say was “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir.” You could state simple problems: “The air pump is laboring, sir.” “The corn is budding, sir.”\n<\/div><\/div>
Me<\/div>
You changed that.\n<\/div><\/div>
Mark<\/div>
I eliminated the “sirs.” Equality is the rule on our hunk of rock.\n<\/div><\/div>
Me<\/div>
What keeps you here?\n<\/div><\/div>
Mark<\/div>
It’s perfect for thinking and studying. This rock is beautiful, too; occasionally I catch a glimpse of Mars or Jupiter. Once I thought I saw Earth.\n<\/div><\/div>
Me<\/div>
But never Venus! You have always been suspicious and scornful of women. But for some reason you didn’t give me that same view.\n* * * * *\n<\/div><\/div>
Mark<\/div>
“What do you think of girls?”\n<\/div><\/div>
Me<\/div>
“Oh, I don’t know. You have to find the right one.”\n<\/div><\/div>
Mark<\/div>
“I never saw a good one yet.”\n<\/div><\/div>
Me<\/div>
“Well, that’s not fair. Perhaps you didn’t look long enough. There’s a girl in the world for every man.”\n<\/div><\/div>
Mark<\/div>
“You’re a romantic!”\n<\/div><\/div>
Me<\/div>
I dreamed of a girl named Martha once. Maybe if I would have looked, I would have found her.”\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

* * * * * * * *<\/p>\n

Mark<\/div>
What do you think of girls?\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

Charles grew old. His limbs lost their flexibility, and some of his wiring started to corrode. Mark would spend hours keeping the robot in repair.<\/p>\n

Mark<\/div>
You’re getting rusty.\n<\/div><\/div>
Me<\/div>
You’re not so young yourself.\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

Look for Part 2!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Robert Sheckley Adapted to chat story format by Captivated Chat * * * * * * * * Charles grew old. His limbs lost their flexibility, and some of his wiring started to corrode. Mark would spend hours keeping the robot in repair. Look for Part 2!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2049,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_ti_tpc_template_sync":false,"_ti_tpc_template_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[479,469,475,224,476,470,481,261,472,478,480,473,471,325,477,186],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/captivatedchat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2023"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/captivatedchat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/captivatedchat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/captivatedchat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/captivatedchat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/captivatedchat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11404,"href":"https:\/\/captivatedchat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2023\/revisions\/11404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/captivatedchat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/captivatedchat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/captivatedchat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/captivatedchat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2023"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/captivatedchat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}