“Mother?” Rak said into the gloom. Outside, something was different. She peered out through one of the eyes. The world wasn’t moving.
“Mother!” Rak put the tube in her nose again, but it fell out and lay limp in her lap. She slid out of the hammock, standing up on stiff legs. The hatch to Mother’s brain was still open. Rak pulled herself up into the little space. It was pitch dark and still. No pulse moved through the walls.
Rak left Mother’s head and started down the long corridors, down toward the Nursery and the Belly. She scooped some mucus from the wall to eat, but it tasted rank. It was getting darker. Only the growths around the round plate between the Head and the rest of the body were still glowing brightly. They had changed to green.
In the Nursery, Papa was lying on his cot, chest rising and falling faintly.
“There you are,” he said when Rak approached. “You were gone for so long.”
“What happened?” said Rak.
Papa shook his head. “Nothing happened. Nothing at all.”
“Mother isn’t moving,” said Rak. “I found Her head, and She talked to me, and I helped Her find her way to food, but she says she can’t be repaired, and now she’s not moving. I don’t know what to do.”
Papa closed his eyes. “Our Mother is dead,” he whispered. “And we will go with Her.”
He turned away, spreading his arms against the wall, hugging the tangle of cabling and flesh. Rak left him there.
In the Belly, the air was thick and rancid. The peristaltic engine was still. Rak’s feet slapping against the floor made a very loud noise. Around the chamber, workers were lying along the walls, half-melted into Mother’s flesh. The Leg accesses along the walls were all open; here and there an arm or a head poked out. Hap lay close to the entrance, resting on her side. Her body was gaunt, her ribs fully visible through the skin. She had begun sinking into the floor; Rak could still see part of her face. Her eyes were half-closed, as if she were just very tired.
Rak backed out into the corridor, turning back toward the Head. The sphincters were all relaxing, sending the foul air from the Belly toward her, forcing her to crawl forward. The last of the luminescence faded. She crawled in darkness until she saw a green shimmer up ahead. The round plate was still there. It swung aside at her touch.
The air coming in was cold and sharp, painful on the skin, but fresh. Rak breathed in deep. The hot air from Mother’s insides streamed out above her in a cloud. The sun hung low on the horizon, its light far more blinding than Mother’s eyes had seen it. One hand in front of her eyes, Rak swung her legs out over the rim of the opening and cried out in surprise when her feet landed on grass. The myriad blades prickled the soles of her feet. She sat there, gripping at the grass with her toes, eyes squeezed shut. When the light was less painful, she opened her eyes a little and stood up.
The aperture opened out between two of Mother’s jointed legs. They rested on the grass, each leg thicker around than Rak could reach with her arms. Beyond them, she could glimpse more legs to either side. She looked up. Behind her, the wall of Mother’s body rose up, more than twice Rak’s own height. Beyond the top there was sky, a blue nothing, not flat like seen through Mother’s eyes but deep and endless. In front of her, the grassland, stretching on and on. Rak held on to the massive leg next to her. Her stomach clenched, and she bent over and spat bile. There was a hot lump in her chest that wouldn’t go away. She spat again and kneeled on the grass.
“Mother,” she whispered in the thin air. She leaned against the leg. It was cold and smooth. “Mother, please.” She crawled in under Mother’s legs, curling up against Her body, breathing in Her familiar musk. A sweet hint of rot lurked below. The knot in Rak’s chest forced itself up through her throat in a howl.
Rak eventually fell asleep. She dreamed of legs sprouting from her sides, her body elongating and dividing into sections, taking a sinuous shape. She ran over the grass, legs in perfect unison, muscles and vertebrae stretching and becoming powerful. The sky was no longer terrible. Warm light caressed the length of her scales.
A pattering noise in the distance woke her up. Rak stretched and rubbed her eyes. Her cheeks were crusted with salt. She scratched at her side. An itching line of nubs ran along her ribs. Beside her, Mother’s body no longer smelled of musk; the smell of rot was stronger. She crawled out onto the grass and rose to her feet. The sky had darkened, and a pale orb hung in the void, painting the landscape in stark grey and white. Mother lay quiet, stretched out into the distance. Rak saw now that Mother’s carapace was grey and pitted, some of the many legs cracked or missing.
In the bleak light, a long shape on many legs approached. When it came close, Rak saw it was much smaller than Mother – perhaps three or four times Rak’s length. She stood very still. The other paused a few feet away. It reared up, forebody and legs waving back and forth. Its mandibles clattered. Something about its movement caused a warm stirring in Rak’s belly. After a while, it turned around, depositing a gelatinous sac on the ground. It slowly backed away.
Rak approached the sac. It was the size of her head. Inside, a host of little shapes wriggled around. Her belly rumbled. The other departed, mandibles clattering, as Rak ripped the sac open with her teeth. The wriggling little things were tangy on her tongue. She swallowed them whole.
She ate until she was sated, then crouched down on the ground, scratching at her sides. Her arms and legs tingled. She had a growing urge to run and stretch her muscles: to run and never stop.
AFTERWORD
Transposing Worlds
The decision to translate my own work was born out of an old dream. When I first got serious about writing, I fantasized about becoming so well-known in Sweden that someone would translate my work into other languages. I put the thought out of my mind—I wasn’t even published in Swedish yet—and ten years passed.
My country has a long and solid tradition when it comes to short stories and speculative fiction, but it proved difficult to publish either. Among the handful of Swedish magazines that published short stories, few were interested in the fantastic, and those that were died off one by one. Abroad, on the other hand, Weird Tales beckoned. And Interzone, Asimov’s, Strange Horizons. Scores of magazines, just out of reach.
I was by no means sure my English was good enough. I pretended it was, figured I’d need some immersive practice, and applied to the Clarion SF & Fantasy Writers’ Workshop on a lark. I got in, and ever since I’ve been writing stories in both Swedish and English, creating translations in both languages.
My experience of English reflects that of most Swedes of my generation. I studied British English from the fourth grade, learning through songs by The Beatles and the rituals of tea time. American English was the language of MTV and the movies, and, later, science fiction paperbacks. Being so exposed to both varieties, neither of which is your own, makes it difficult if not impossible to keep track of what word (and often, pronunciation) belongs where. You make do with the resulting composite. This collection may reflect that wonderful confluence and confusion.
Writing in Swedish and English are two very different experiences. Your native language resonates in your bones. Each spoken word reaffirms or changes the world as you see it, intellectually and emotionally. Because Swedish is my mother tongue, I can take enormous liberties with it because I know exactly and instinctively how it works. English doesn’t quite allow itself to be grabbed by the scruff of its neck in the same way. As a result, I’m more careful with the prose, perhaps less adventurous, because without that gut reaction it’s hard to know exactly how something will resonate with an English-speaking reader. On the other, I may find paths into English that a native speaker might not, because there are aspects of your native tongue that you just don’t see since you are standing in the middle of it. I am reminded of those times I’ve been amazed by how a non-native speaker can bend my own language in unexpected directions, or just approach it with an ear that makes it seem like a new creation.