Sci-Fi short story inquiry/request.

[CactusSmasher]

Hey guys, new here. I'm a big sci-fi/fantasy reader and I felt like finding a place that had people with similar interests, luckily I find this place. :)

Anyway, the point of this thread is that I've been trying to find this one science fiction story for almost a year now. I know the plot but I have no idea who the author is and I have no idea what the name of the story is, I just remember the plot.

Basically, it was in the future where robots have become the dominant citizens of the universe and humans have become something of a rarity. A robot lands on a distant, desert-like planet and finds a lone human living in a cave. The robot is fascinated by the human and his strange habits (eating, sleeping, loneliness, etc.) and lives with him for a while. One day, the human complains about the heat, and the robot sees it as the human saying that he is overheating, malfunctioning, so the robot does the standard procedure of disconnecting the brain cable and opening the chest plate, but all he finds are organs. He hasn't realized what he has done, even after trying to reattach the "cable". He watches the body decompose and leaves the planet.

I heard this story mentioned somewhere on the internet a while ago and I've been trying to figure out what the name was or who the author was. If anybody can help with this I'd be eternally grateful. Thank you all so much and have a good day.

[stinkycats]

Yay for thread resurrections! I figure I should at the very least go through some of the unanswered posts and see if I can help.

I remember reading this short story in a horror anthology. I'm not completely sure, but I think the author was Theodore Sturgeon. I don't have the anthology anymore (this was many years ago) and I can't find any online bibliographies that list summaries, so you may have to go to the library to find a bibliography.

Hope this helps.

[CactusSmasher]

Wow, I didn't think anyone would respond to this! Theodore Sturgeon, that certainly gives me a place to start looking. Do you remember the name of the anthology or possibly who edited it? Thanks so much.

[stinkycats]

Unfortunately, it was many, MANY, years ago (more than 20), so I don't remember much of what the book looked like or the title. IIRC, the publication of the anthology itself was at least a couple of decades old, so the collection may have been published in the 60's. But I do clearly remember the story, mainly because it was so disheartening (middle of the 80's, Reagan's "evil empire" doomsday outlook, oh look -- this story is about the last bits of humanity -- how cheery).

[JimF]

I have a vague recolection of reading a story like that in a twilight zone magazine or anthology somewhere.