The Undefeated

by Una McCormack

  Tales from Torello were more limited: she talked about the death of her husband, casting it as a form of liberation. Leaving for the periphery had been an adventure at first, clearly, a way to shock her parents, but the reality had been bored exile, and, reading between the lines, Monica received validation of what she had often suspected over the years: how her mother had made her father’s life there a misery. “It was better that he died,” her mother said. “Better for you, too, able to leave that backwater and go to school at last . . .” Mostly she repeated this self-same story, over and over, but sometimes, more so towards the end, something would pop up that Monica had never heard before. Was it a form of confession? A bid to establish her version of events? Whatever the reason, something drove her to pass on information before the end.

  She had one last sting in her tale. It was mid-morning, and Monica had been sitting by her bedside for a while, looking out of the big window across the water to St. Mark’s and thinking how bizarre the reconstruction was, how strange to be sitting in a dead city on a dead world, brought artificially back to life, by a woman who was dying. Lucy was coming in and out, sorting bedlinen, tidying away the breakfast dishes, busy about the kinds of tasks with which she filled her day.

  Monica, turning from the window, became aware that her mother was awake, and looking at her. Suddenly, her mother said, “Did you know what happened to the mayor?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The mayor of Torello.”

  Monica hardly knew what to say. These were events from fifty years ago, at least; she could barely recall anything . . .

  “He was murdered,” her mother said.

  “Murdered?”

  “Oh yes. By his wife.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t use slang, Monica, it’s terribly unbecoming.”

  “The mayor,” Monica prompted.

  “Yes, his wife. Killed him. Shot him dead late one night, through the head. That place, that dreadful place! I don’t know why I ever went there.”

  “Wasn’t his name Langley?”

  “Yes, yes.” Her mother’s face softened in memory. “Oh, he was a handsome man! And she shot him in the face. I liked him a great deal. He was a good friend of your father’s, too.”

  Monica began to piece together little bits of overheard conversation, long forgotten; yes, she had known that the mayor had died, when she was quite small, but had certainly never worked out that it was murder. It was not the kind of thing her father would have discussed, and would not have figured in her mother’s conversation either.

  “We all knew that he hit her, of course,” her mother went on. “The wives, I mean. We all knew. After it all happened, some of them wanted to testify on her behalf—but really, no. No. Langley was a big player on Sienna. Destroying his reputation would have given the Commonwealth the excuse to annex Sienna, and your father wasn’t ready . . . Still too much bound up in Sienna; still not enough moved away. Anyway, I had a word here and a word there, and soon put a stop to that. It went to court and she was convicted.”

  “Did Daddy know about the mayor?”

  “What was that, dear? Don’t mutter—”

  “Did Daddy know James Langley hit his wife?”

  “I’ve no idea, darling.” She sounded bored. “I doubt it. Women are good at hiding these things, if they want to. Most men don’t know the half of it. I will say this about your father, I never felt any danger from him in that regard.”

  No, he had been a gentle man, in many ways.

  “She asked me to speak to him,” her mother said.

  “Caroline Langley?”

  “Mm. To your daddy. Ask for his help. I promised I would, but you see how I couldn’t, don’t you? Really, no. No. I told her that I had. Said that he’d told me to tell her he couldn’t do anything.”

  The room was quiet. Outside the water of the lagoon lapped against the stone of the island, lapped and lapped, and ate away.

  “What happened to her?” Monica said at last.

  “To who?”

  “The wife. The widow.”

  “Oh, what do they call it? The thing that they do . . .” She touched her wrist and her throat.

  She was made jenjer. Suddenly, Monica became aware of Lucy, standing stock still at the far side of the room. She licked her lips and said, “And what happened to her bond?”

  “Good heavens, Monica, I never asked! Hardly appropriate!” She closed her eyes. “I wonder, sometimes, what would have happened if I’d told your father . . .” She shook her head. “But no. No. He had too much to worry about. And the money—it wasn’t safe yet. It wasn’t off Sienna.”

  So he had given up, in the end, Monica thought. All her wealth—why had she not considered this before? How easily she had gone from Sienna to the Commonwealth. He’d moved the money, just in time, just before everything he owned became worthless.

  “You know, I thought I saw her again, just before we left,” her mother said. “Impossible, of course. I don’t know what they do with these people, but they don’t just let them run around. Thank goodness.”

  Monica, conscious of Lucy, felt deep shame. The casualness with which their fates and destinies were discussed . . . She lowered her eyes, looked through her lashes at Lucy, as she gave her mother the pills, and that was how she caught the look of naked hatred on Lucy’s face. Was this how all jenjer looked at us, Monica thought, when they think we are not looking?

  The end came soon after, as if, with this tale told, her mother had nothing more to add to the story of her life. Over the next few weeks she withdrew into herself, remaining in bed, and rarely opening her eyes. Late one afternoon, almost asleep herself, Monica jolted awake, and saw her mother looking at her with sharp unvanquished eyes. That was the very last surge of life. She did not wake the following morning. Monica, coming in with breakfast, knew at once that her mother had gone. She sat for a while, holding the frail old hand, and pondering their lives together. She had not chosen this woman to be her mother and would not, truth be told, have chosen such a woman as her mother. Their bond had only ever worked one way, and she was not sorry to be free of it, although she was sad. Lucy came in, softly, and sized up the situation at once. Monica released her mother’s hand.

  “I’m sorry,” Monica said.

  Lucy stared at her. She had aged slowly, in the jenjer way, and now Monica had almost caught up with her.

  “You were with her a long time,” Monica said.

  “Oh yes,” said Lucy. “A very long time. The sights I’ve seen . . . We saw everything, you know,” she said. “Witnessed everything. Justice. It was justice. And this—” She gestured round the lonely room. “Alone, rambling—this was justice too—”

  “Stop now,” Monica said, firmly. “She was my mother. I loved her.”

  “Justice,” said Lucy. “We’re coming. We’re coming.”

  She paid off Lucy’s bond and, as an added bonus, gave her the famous writer’s first editions to sell. The woman was gone the following morning.

  Where do they go to, these jenjer, Monica wondered, when they’re free of us? Standing in Torello, she supposed she had her answer now. She had all the answers now.

  Four

  WAS IT HER? Monica wondered, staring into the empty pool. Did she come for revenge? The people of the town had kept her with her husband and, when at last she had broken free of him, colluded to punish her beyond what was reasonable. She had been trapped, friendless, and had come to her mother—and, so she thought, to her father—for aid. And she had been abandoned, and paid the ultimate penalty.

  Who would not want revenge in those circumstances, Monica thought—and how glorious, how grand, how final. Torello burned; Sienna fallen; and Arthur Greatorex, whose task it was to protect her, shot dead knowing that his cause was lost.

  “I could cry,” said Monica to the night sky. “I could cry.”

  But for what? For her daddy, who had loved his home so much, but not enough to leave his mone
y there? For her mother, who got everything she wanted from life? For herself, who had lived a good full life? Or for that woman, that jenjer—all jenjer—who would not, Monica suspected, want her tears.

  She heard footsteps behind her. Turning, she saw Gale, and suddenly she was back, again, on the hillside, a girl not quite twelve years old, realising the depths of the danger she was in. She touched the tracker, which was throbbing still, uselessly, and Gale saw what she was doing and smiled.

  “Where have you been?” she said.

  “I walked up the hillside,” he said. “There’s an old uplink there.”

  “I know. Is it working?”

  He took a step towards her. He could kill her now, and nobody would ever know. Nobody would care. Soon there would be war, and there would be a great many dead bodies.

  “I got it working again,” he said. “You can go, if you want, although I don’t think we’ll be able to persuade someone to come and collect you.”

  “No,” she said. “It’s much too late for that.”

  “You should have gone when you had the chance.”

  “I wasn’t ready. I didn’t understand . . .”

  “And now?”

  “Now,” she said, “I think I understand.”

  “Do you?” He moved towards her, swift, silent, catlike. “Do you really?”

  “Justice,” she said.

  “Not only that.”

  “Yes, of course. Retribution.”

  He sighed at the word, like a thirsty man thinking of a cool drink. “You might want to be somewhere else when we arrive.”

  “But there isn’t anywhere else, is there?” she said, her words tumbling out. “People can run, but there’s nowhere to hide. Not the core worlds, not old Earth. You’re everywhere.”

  “Yes,” he said. “We’re everywhere. In your blood and in your bones.”

  “Will there be some kind of signal, when the time comes?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, and then corrected himself. “I don’t know yet.”

  “Do you hate us so much?”

  He looked at her steadily. “Yes.”

  “Do you hate me, Gale?”

  He contemplated her for a few moments, his eyes bright and unblinking. At last, he said, “You were always very kind.”

  Yes, she thought, he hates me.

  He turned to go. “Come or go as you please, Monica,” he said. “But we’re coming.”

  He disappeared into the darkness. Yes, they were coming, and the war was coming with them. They are coming, the slaves that we made, she thought, and we made them powerful and relentless, and their memories long and precise.

  She looked around. Where could she go? Back to the core? Why? What was the point? She might as well stay here, see them when they came . . .

  She laughed. And why not? Why not? Yes, she thought, she would stay. She would watch them come.

  She went inside and began work. Her old style came back, easily, learned decades ago and finessed over years. They were coming, and she would see them come. She would observe from the front lines, as she always had done, and send back news of everything she sees, send out her signal into the coming storm.

  Acknowledgments

  Huge thanks to Marco Palmieri, who took a single-sentence Twitter pitch and said, “We should do that . . . send me an outline.” My thanks also to Lee Harris for nurturing this project through the last stages to publication.

  I’m very grateful to the librarian at Newnham College, Cambridge, who let me perch in the library for months. That is where this story was written. And, as ever, I am in debt to Matthew, who does all the heavy lifting while I sit in libraries living my best life.

  About the Author

  UNA McCORMACK is a New York Times bestselling author and a university lecturer in creative writing. She has written novels, short stories, and audio dramas for franchises such as Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Blake’s 7. She lives in Cambridge, England, with her partner and their daughter. They have no cats and one Dalek.

  You can sign up for email updates here.

  Thank you for buying this Tor.com ebook.

  To receive special offers, bonus content, and info on new releases and other great reads, sign up for our newsletters.

  For email updates on the author, click here.

  TOR•COM

  Science fiction. Fantasy. The universe. And related subjects.

  *

  More than just a publisher's website, Tor.com is a venue for original fiction, comics, and discussion of the entire field of SF and fantasy, in all media and from all sources. Visit our site today—and join the conversation yourself.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novella are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE UNDEFEATED

  Copyright © 2019 by Una McCormack

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Chris McGrath

  Cover design by Christine Foltzer

  Edited by Marco Palmieri

  A Tor.com Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.

  ISBN 978-0-7653-9924-3 (ebook)

  ISBN 978-0-7653-9925-0 (trade paperback)

  First Edition: May 2019

  Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, ext. 5442, or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.