Mahadiva

Eight years have passed since that journey to London, which now seems so distant.

Since then, Pearl has never stopped watching the night sky from the same bedroom window. Tonight, with ambient music playing in her headphones, though always alert to the sounds of the house, she watches a second screen standing where the old telescope used to be. On it she is watching, very closely, the gripper of a robotic probe, A-1, striking its own camera. Pearl rewinds the recording.

An orange crust breaks open beneath the robot. A leg searches for purchase, the body turns and the gripper sweeps across the frame. After that there is only black liquid. It all lasts four seconds. In the kitchen her mother closes a drawer; she hears it clearly. The notebooks occupy the top shelf; below them are the reports the agency has been paying her for over the past three years. One remains open beside the keyboard. She recognises her signature without having to look for it.

“Play the second one,” Mary asks from London.

The engineer with Mary, Vidal, opens the A-2 record. The camera shows a shoreline from below. A leg scrapes at the rock. Each movement dislodges fragments that fall onto the lens. In the last frame a triangle of sky remains. Two red indicators appear on the map. Beneath the name of the Mahadiva probe, one green light remains: A-3. Mary leans over the operations desk.

“Order it back.”

Vidal enters the command. The message joins the transmission queue at Sagan II, the robotic station at NDDT 612’s south pole. Pearl opens the route map. The return route crosses the sector where the second robot has just sunk.

“Mary,” Pearl calls.

The director does not turn towards the camera.

“It’s programmed to skirt the area.”

Pearl enlarges the last few metres of the record. The crack runs beneath A-2’s tracks and continues until it vanishes beyond the frame.

“We don’t know how far it goes.”

Vidal leaves one hand on the keyboard. At last Mary looks at the image sent from Keswick.

“Stop,” she says. “Don’t let it take another step.”

The new instruction goes out behind the first.

In the images coming in, A-3 is still moving. One leg sinks as far as the joint. It pulls it free and sets it down farther away. The hole fills with black liquid. Pearl checks the time on the image. It has already happened. She still cannot quite get used to the delay in the instructions’ arrival, because of the immense distance, and the further wait for a response.

She sets her feet on the floor, straightens her back and watches the counter until the next record arrives.

Robot A-3 has stopped beside a rock face. One leg is sunk; the others hold its body at an angle. The basket it carries beneath the chassis touches the strange surface. Vidal confirms receipt of the stop command. Mary asks for a side view. On Pearl’s adjoining screen the terrain report is still open. ‘Transit authorised.’ Her name is beneath it. She scrolls down to the appendix where she wrote that the images did not allow them to determine the thickness of the crust.

She has to go through four pages to find the warning. Meanwhile her mother comes in with a plate. There are two slices of toast and a cut-up apple. She looks for a space and leaves it on the bed.

“It’s all gone cold.”

Pearl raises one finger. The woman looks at the headphones, the screen, her daughter’s finger. She leaves without another word. A health bulletin drifts in from the living room. The volume has gone up over the past few weeks: in the news there is always someone speaking behind a mask. The presenter repeats that the virus was believed to have been extinct for millions of years. Her mother changes channels. The same news returns in another voice.

Vidal opens the clone model of A-3 and simulates a reversing manoeuvre. The virtual body pitches forwards. She tries again with the legs in a different position. She gets the same result.

“The basket’s caught,” Vidal says firmly. “If it pulls, it tips over.”

Mary checks the inventory. Behind her are the almost empty rows of the operations centre. On a table sit three containers identical to the ones the robot carries. Empty, white, clean.

“Can it cut it free with the gripper?”

“It has an emergency release.”

Vidal opens a diagram of the latches. Their indicators are still green. Pearl looks at the containers on the table, then at the dark basket. A-3 is carrying the samples from all three study sites. The other robots were meant to scout the route and return with it. Their lights remain red. Mary asks for alternatives. Vidal points to the module intended to take the samples from Sagan II to the orbiting probe. She can bring its descent forward and divert it towards the slope to obtain images below the clouds. The fuel for the diversion will have to come from the ascent reserve. They have no other module.

“From orbit?”

“We have this.”

The engineer shows a recent photograph. Clouds cover the slope. Mary checks another date. The same smooth terrain they approved is visible. Pearl returns to the first page of her report. She received the query at eleven one night. The answer had to be in London by morning. She rereads the exchange attached to the report. Mary had asked her to conclude the assessment: they needed a yes or a no to proceed.

Pearl had written yes, subject to the reservations in the appendix. On the operations screen, Mary draws up a chair.

“Release the basket.”

Pearl takes off one headphone.

“It might stabilise. If we wait for another pass…”

Vidal advances two images. The black edge has risen against a mark on the chassis.

“It’s sinking.”

Pearl looks at the two images. She searches for a third, checks the time. The engineer waits with the command open. Mary says her name. Pearl puts the headphone back on.

“Yes. It’s gone down.”

Vidal selects release. The system requests Mary’s confirmation: losing the basket will leave the mission without samples. The director reads the whole warning before accepting.

While they wait, Pearl hears a tap being turned on. Her mother washes the dishes, puts them in the rack and switches the television back on. Vidal goes over the escape they have programmed. Without its load, the robot will have to brace itself on the legs still clear of the liquid. If it manages to pull free, it will try to reach the rock visible to the left of the camera. Pearl looks at the edge of that rock. She has seen it so many times that she could draw it with her eyes shut.

She opens the map and marks it. Beyond it she leaves the terrain unmarked. The first new record shows the latches open. The basket is still underneath. Vidal checks the loads. The free leg rises and the body tilts towards the opposite side. In the next image, a strip of metal separates from the chassis. Pearl holds her breath. The robot begins to rise. The camera shakes, drops towards the ground and the image breaks up into blocks.

In London, Vidal asks about the link. Pearl’s mouth has fallen open. She closes it. She looks at the green light. It is still on. The feed returns with an image of orange rock. Vidal announces the position and Mary asks them to confirm the footing of each leg. At the bottom of the frame, the basket lies on the broken crust. A black wave washes over it. As it retreats, one of the containers shines for an instant, tilted, before disappearing.

Mary sits down. Pearl waits for Vidal to say something. The engineer checks the joints and the power level. A-3 is stable. Between it and Sagan II lies a stretch none of them now knows how to cross. Vidal reactivates autonomous navigation; A-3 will have to find its own way back, and none of them can be sure it will reach Sagan II.

Pearl’s mother comes into the room and stops beside the plate on the bed.

“Is that it?”

Pearl takes off her headphones.

“For now.”

“Was it saved?”

Pearl looks back at the screen.

“The robot was, yes.”

The woman searches her daughter’s face for what else she ought to ask. Pearl picks up the plate and holds it without eating. A little brown patch is already forming along the edge of each piece of apple.

Mary calls her when the others are already preparing for the shift change. The camera shows her office. Her hair is down and she holds the headphones in one hand. Pearl puts the plate beside the keyboard.

“Tomorrow we review the authorisations,” Mary says. “I want you to send me the report with all the reservations. The complete version.”

Pearl opens the document.

“Our emails too?”

Mary puts down the headphones.

“They’ve asked me for the report.”

Pearl keeps the query from that night open. Mary’s name appears above the message.

“You asked me to answer yes or no.”

“You could have said no.”

Pearl takes her hand off the mouse. On the report’s first page, beneath ‘Transit authorised’, is her name.

“I said yes,” she replies. “They’ll read it.”

Mary runs a hand through her hair. She looks towards the office door.

“Attach the emails.”

Pearl puts the cursor over the file. For the past three years she has been doing this from her bedroom: sending the report, waiting for questions, correcting it. Then taking off her headphones and going downstairs for dinner.

“I’m coming,” she says.

Mary checks something out of frame.

“I can set up a connection for the meeting.”

“I’m going to be there.”

The woman looks at her again. This time she nods. Pearl sends the document and ends the call. Then she looks for a one-way ticket. Her mother is still beside her, collecting the crumbs that have fallen onto the bedspread. Pearl tells her what time the train leaves. The woman puts the crumbs on the plate.

“And coming back?”

“I’m staying in London.”

Her mother looks at the wardrobe. On top is the bag Pearl has been packing and unpacking for weeks.

“You don’t have to leave because of this.”

Pearl opens her mouth. The woman raises her hand, but before she can touch her daughter’s cheek, Pearl moves away to get the bag. Her mother lowers her hand. Pearl leaves the bag open on the bed. Beneath the clothes she has set out, the notebook from the first journey is visible. The elastic band falls apart when she tries to stretch it. She throws it in the wastepaper basket and takes out the notebook to make room. Her mother picks up the plate.

“This time, call me before you arrive.”

Pearl nods, her back turned, the notebook in her hand.

When she hears the slippers moving away, she leaves the notebook on the clothes and goes out into the hall. She catches her mother before she reaches the kitchen and hugs her. The woman holds the plate to one side. With her free hand she reaches for her daughter’s back, beneath her hair.

They stay like that, holding each other for a moment that will remain etched into both their skins.