I was a celebrity, droned the robot sadly, for a short while on account of my miraculous and bitterly resented escape from a fate almost as good as death in th e heart of a blazing sun. You can guess from my condition, he added, how narrow my escape was. I was rescued by a scrap-meta l merchant, imagine that. Here I am, brain the size of ... never mind. He trudged savagely for a few seconds. He it was who fixed me up with this leg. Hateful, isnt it? He sold me to a Mind Zoo. I was the star exhibit. I had to sit on a box and tell my story whilst people told me to cheer up and think positive. `Give us a gr in, little robot, they would shout at me, `give us a little chuckle. I would explain to them that to get my face to grin wold take a good couple of hours in a workshop with a wrench, and that went down very well. The speech, urged the mattress. I long to hear of the speech you gave in the marshes. There was a bridge built across th e marshes. A cyberstructured hyperbridge, hundreds of miles in length, to carry ion-buggies and freighters over the swamp. A bridge? quirruled the mattress. Here in the swamp? A bridge, confirmed Marvin, here in the swamp. It was going to revitalize the economy of the Squornshellous System. They spent the entire economy of the Squornshe llous System building it. They asked me to open it. Poor fools. It began to rain a little, a fi ne spray slid through the mist. I stood on the platform. For hundreds of miles in front of me, and hundreds of miles behind me, the bridge stretched. Did it glitter? enthused the mattress. It glittered. Did it span the miles majestically? It spanned the miles majestically. Did it stretch like a silver thread far out into the invisible mist? Yes, said Marvin. Do you want to hear this story? I want to hear your speech, said the mattress. This is what I said. I said, `I would like to say that it is a very great pleasure, honour and privilege for me to open this bridge, but I cant because my lying circuits are all out of commission. I hate and despise you all. I now declare this hapless cyberstructure open to th e unthinkable abuse of all who wantonly cross her. And I plugged myself into the opening circuits. Marvin paused, remembering the moment. The mattress flurred and glurried . It flolloped, gupped and willomied, doing this last in a particularly floopy way. Voon, it wurfed at last. And it was a magnificent occasion? Reasonably magnificent. The en tire thousand-mile-long bridge spontaneously folded up its glittering spans and sank weeping into the mire, taking everybody with it.
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 10:22:13 +0000
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