Light of the world

Ah, I don't know. When you've been married as long as we have, maybe it just gets a little boring after a while, but I had really hoped this cruise would save our marriage. Harry has been a real pill all through it though: moaning about every spot I want to go, claiming he wants to be other places, undermining everything I do and generally being a real pain. It's not as if I don't love him, you understand, but, well, when you've decided to blow your life savings on this one big trip you'd think he'd at least try to enjoy himself. But no: it's "Myra this and Myra that. Myra I can't find my shoes. Myra this atmosphere is playing havoc with my insides. Myra, why did we come here? Myra can't we just go home?"

Like I said, a real pill.

But of all the places on our list, this planet was the one I had been looking forward to the most. Harry doesn't understand – or pretends not to. He moaned all the way as we descended in the shuttle. Still, even he had to admit the one with the rings was beautiful. I don't know what they used to call it, who even remembers? But it sure is nice.

We weren't going there, of course. There's no surface, and while we don't need to breathe, naturally, even a Generation 9 can't walk on air, and we're both lowly Gen 4s, very much older models. Hell, sometimes I feel it in my circuits how old we are, but after four thousand years you're bound to feel the odd twinge or two. Reckon I got another few centuries left in me yet though before they throw me on the scrap heap, and even if Harry ain't gonna play ball, even if we end up drifting apart (as I worry we will, and what will I do without him?) I'll be damned if I'm going to miss out on my dream cruise.

We've seen the ice falls of Rigel XII, watched herds of pamanthrapa sweep majestically across the plains of Indios XVII, explored the ruins of Seven Centuries City on Stelios II and listened in rapture (well, me anyway; Harry complained it was just noise. What a philistine, whatever that is) to the most beautiful melodies the planet Vangelis Maximus, on the outer edge of the Horse Head Nebula (what is a horse, I asked the guide, but he just shrugged) can produce, and let me tell you, I ain't never heard nothing so sad and wonderful and inspiring and evocative in all my life, and that's saying something.

But now, we're heading down to this planet which our guide informs us in a bored voice has been designated SL/E/0009-03, but which I secretly call the Garden Planet. Harry's moaning all the time, but what can you expect? Why did I ever marry him? I coulda had anyone. Oh well, what's done is done; let me just enjoy this trip and what will be will be when it's over.

"Willya look at that, Harry?"

I try to get him to show some interest, but he's flipping through his incopad, and I swear, if I find anymore suggestive comms from Gen 7s in there...

"What? What? I'm busy, Myra."

Yeah, he's busy all right. I grab the pad from him irritably, shut it off. For a moment he looks like he's gonna say something, but for once he knows better. This is important to me.

"Just look, will ya? We came all this way and you ain't even gonna look at it?"

"Didn't even want to come," grumps my husband of three thousand years. Then he sighs and must decide to make an effort, as he says, with bad grace "What's so great about it, Myra? It's just a big statue."

"Shows what you know!" I sniff, looking up at the huge idol towering over us, looming like some protector. The servo-mechanism that oils the joints in my mouth fails for a moment; my mouth is dry. "This was hand-made, Harry, over four hundred thousand years ago. You know, back when there were organics in the universe?"

It's his turn to sniff, disdainfully. "There never were, Myra," he argues. "That's just old stories for children."

The scientist in me deplores his ignorance, and I begin to say "Research into the prehistory of the universe has suggested..."