Gunther Muck's Arc

Chapter 6 of 6

The punch dried on Gunther's skin in a sticky crust. Galahja carried him out of the trench bend and set him on a slab of tin near her work pile. Her dog flopped down beside her boot. She pulled her headphones off one ear and looked at him hard. "You're mine now," she said. "Time to pay for the save." She unrolled a bundle of copper wire, thin as thread, and a burnt junction box the size of her fist. The box had six ports, each barely wide enough for a finger. "I need the guts rewired. You crawl in, chew the dead solder off the pins, spit clean copper back. Small work. Wire work. That's what I kept you small for." Gunther did not want wire work. Wire work meant staying the size of a thumb. Wire work meant no starship, ever. He tried to roll off the tin. Galahja caught him and pushed him against the first port. "No. You owe me a coil for Brynn. You owe me your ribs. You go in." He squeezed through. The port pinched his sides. Inside the box, old solder tasted like ash and lead. He chewed a bead loose. His body wanted to swell around it, to grow, but the walls held him tight to Galahja's shape. Then something moved beside him in the dark. A small purple shape with a stem for a head pressed against his flank. Its eyes shone wet and huge. It was not metal. It was alive, and soft, and hiding in the box the way he had hidden in the trench. The little creature nuzzled the solder bead out of his mouth and swallowed it. Then another. It ate the lead faster than he could chew. It burped, and the box hummed. The pins went clean. Gunther understood. He shoved harder, cracked the box seam from the inside, and rolled out onto the tin with the purple thing clinging to him. Galahja stared. "What is that." A thumping came up the trench. A round pink hog on one thick leg bounced past her pile, chasing a small spotted cow that wiggled sideways on stubby hooves. The cow was Brynn's. The pilot herself limped after them, one arm in a sling, cursing. Galahja stood. Her debt walked past her on four bad legs. She grabbed at the cow's rope and missed. The hog crashed into her wire pile and scattered it. Her dog bolted after the hog. Gunther used the noise. He rolled off the tin with the purple creature and dropped into the seam under the slab. Small. Fast. Free of the port for now. Galahja spun back and saw the empty tin. "Muck," she yelled. "Get back here. You still owe me." He pressed deeper into the dark. He had refused the wire. He had also made an enemy of the one person who kept him alive.