Gunther Muck's Arc

Chapter 1 of 6

Gunther Muck was a small lump of crud, and today Gunther meant to become more. Frudd was a junk planet, and its freshest garbage fell in one place: the wide ceramic bowl the locals called the drop. Ships flushed their broken parts down its throat every dawn. A scrap of circuit board, a cracked sensor, a coil of wire — swallow enough of it, and a lump like Gunther could grow limbs, then lungs, then a cockpit. Gunther wanted a cockpit. Gunther wanted the stars. The problem sat on the rim of the bowl. A scavenger crouched there with a glass jar, watching the slope. She had painted a crooked claim mark on the ceramic in bright red juice, the kind that came in a tall glass with a slice of fruit floating on top. Gunther had seen her scoop two other crud lumps that week. She sold them by the ounce. Gunther oozed behind a bent pipe and counted her blinks. Slow. Steady. She would spot movement across the open ceramic in a second. But the slope was already glittering with fresh drop — a snapped antenna, a battery still warm. One good crawl and Gunther could double in mass. Then the ground shook. A hog the size of a shed came bounding over the ridge on its one thick leg. It hopped once, twice, and landed square on the rim of the bowl. The scavenger yelped and grabbed for her jar as the ceramic rocked. The hog snuffled at her juice glass and knocked it sideways. Red splashed across her claim mark and washed it into a pink smear. Gunther moved. Gunther poured downslope while the scavenger swatted at the hog's snout. The battery went in first — warm, sharp, humming. The antenna folded into Gunther's side like a swallowed spoon. A cracked lens. A finger of copper wire. Each piece sank in and stayed. Gunther felt heavier. Gunther felt a small hard knot form in the middle, ticking. "Hey!" The scavenger shoved the hog off her boot and spun. She saw the smeared claim. She saw Gunther, twice the size now, glinting with metal. Her hand went to the jar. She was fast. Gunther was faster only because Gunther was already rolling. The jar clanged down on empty ceramic. Gunther tumbled off the lip of the bowl and into the trench below, where the runoff went. The scavenger's shout followed. So did a promise, loud and clear: she would find the crud that stole from her claim. Gunther settled in the dark of the trench and took stock. A battery. An antenna. A lens. Enough to grow a proper shell by nightfall. Enough to be seen from a long way off. That was the trouble. Gunther was bigger now, and no longer small enough to hide.