I followed behind. Wendy, dear, sweet Wendy…
The cube rounded out onto the landing platter. A variety of robots—flatbeds, info cubes, and some kinds I hadn’t seen before—were already at work on the Foxtrot; others were rolling in from various places around the starport. I looked at the ship, its sleek lines, its powerful engines. I thought of the giant, lonely Terry Fox up in orbit. I thought and thought and thought. “Stop,” I said at last.
The robots did just that. “Yes, Carl?” said the multitude.
I hesitated. The words weren’t easy. But they were the truth. “I—I just had to see for myself that it was my choice; that I still had my free will.” I cleared my throat. “Wendy?”
The tank on the nearest info robot became transparent. Interference-pattern cubes coalesced into the pretty face within. “Yes, darling?”
“I love you.”
“You know I love you, too, Carl.”
I steeled myself. “And I’m staying.”
Her voice sang with joy. “Just relax, darling. This won’t hurt a bit.”
Her image was replaced by dancing and whirling prismatic lights. I was aware of a new image forming in the tanks of the other info robots, an image growing more and more refined as cubic pixels divided and subdivided: an image of the two of us, side by side, together, forever. I let myself go.
I was home at last.