Mark had always been suspicious and scornful of women. But for some reason he didn't tape the same suspicion into Charles. Charles' outlook was quite different. * * * * * "What do you think of girls?" Mark would ask, sitting on a packing case outside the shack, after the chores were done. "Oh, I don't know. You have to find the right one." The robot would reply dutifully, repeating what had been put on its tape. "I never saw a good one yet," Mark would say. "Well, that's not fair. Perhaps you didn't look long enough. There's a girl in the world for every man." "You're a romantic!" Mark would say scornfully. The robot would pause--a built-in pause--and chuckle a carefully constructed chuckle. "I dreamed of a girl named Martha once," Charles would say. "Maybe if I would have looked, I would have found her." And then it would be bedtime. Or perhaps Mark would want more conversation. "What do you think of girls?" he would ask again, and the discussion would follow its same course. [Illustration] 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. "You're getting rusty," he would cackle. "You're not so young yourself," Charles would reply. He had an answer for almost everything. Nothing involved, but an answer. It was always night on Martha, but Mark broke up his time into mornings, afternoons and evenings. Their life followed a simple routine. Breakfast, from vegetables and Mark's canned store. Then the robot would work in the fields, and the plants grew used to his touch. Mark would repair the pump, check the water supply, and straighten up the immaculate shack. Lunch, and the robot's chores were usually finished. * * * * * The two would sit on the packing case and watch the stars. They would talk until supper, and sometimes late into the endless night. In time, Mark built more complicated conversations into Charles. He couldn't give the robot free choice, of course, but he managed a pretty close approximation of it. Slowly, Charles' personality emerged. But it was strikingly different from Mark's. Where Mark was querulous, Charles was calm. Mark was sardonic, Charles was naive. Mark was a cynic, Charles was an idealist. Mark was often sad; Charles was forever content. And in time, Mark forgot he had built the answers into Charles. He accepted the robot as a friend, of about his own age. A friend of long years' standing. "The thing I don't understand," Mark would say, "is why a man like you wants to live here. I mean, it's all right for me. No one cares about me, and I never gave much of a damn about anyone. But why you?" "Here I have a whole world," Charles would reply, "where on Earth I had to share with billions. I have the stars, bigger and brighter than on Earth. I have all space around me, close, like still waters. And I have you, Mark."