Nick desperately wanted a drink, but he was going to wait until he was almost falling over to open the next bottle. If I don't find water, I'll be dead in a few days. The question is, is there water on this planet? Well, the real question is whether there's water somewhere around here. If this is a desert on BigBall, it won't help me if there's a river 200 miles from here.

Nick nodded, making a plan. He would build a light, go searching for water, and try to find a cave. If there wasn't a cave, he could probably excavate one at the rate he was going, but he had to find water. And searching needed light.

Nick started feeding Petra things, still trying to figure out what ingredient was what. As the display had promised, it didn't actually take much material: a chunk of iron, a bit of carpet, some rock. He opened a snack bar and offered it to Petra, but she didn't need anything in it. She ate the wrapper just fine, though, which worked out nicely. Nick chewed on the snack bar, struggling to swallow with his throat so dry.

He hated to waste the twilight, so as soon as Petra was printing out the light, he planned to scout for a while. He took a minute to figure out what, if anything, he wanted to bring with him. He recovered his windbreaker, for one. He didn't need it yet, but had no idea how soon that would change. Nick checked the time on Petra's display. It's 6:24 pm back home. No wonder I'm hungry.

Unless he was counting wrong, he had just gotten six hours or so of daylight, sunrise to sunset, so the night would last eight hours. He could totally be counting wrong, though. Oh hey, I could use the note-taking app on my cloned phone! Nick almost slapped his forehead.

There was a small thud, and Nick startled at the sound, but it was the flashlight Petra had printed, already finished. It was a small metal ball, or at least looked like it. He turned it over in his hands, trying to figure out the on switch. Finding nothing, he tapped it, with no effect. Nick went to the Network menu, and there was a new item listed, “flashlight.” He selected it, and played with the controls for a moment.

The metal ball began to glow softly, a sort of mild bluish color. Nick fussed with the brightness a bit, then stuck the ball in his pocket for the moment. Since it was so cheap to make, he fed Petra enough materials to build another one, then headed out.

Water should be at the bottom. That's a significant hike. Going down will be a lot easier than going back up. Actually...should I abandon the car? If I can carry everything, moving down to the valley might be the best move. Closer to water, more shade.

Nick turned back and thought about packing up. Unfortunately, his backpack had been sliced open as it hit the edge of the portal coming through. He'd have to hold it carefully to keep from dropping things. But the solar panels, display, and Petra herself would take up most of the room. He'd have to abandon his only food source and only metal source. Reluctantly, Nick concluded that it wasn't worth it at present.

He headed downhill, mindful of his footing, and trying to see what was in the bottom of the valleys. He didn't have a lot of time for surveying; his little flashlights wouldn't be enough help to spot a pond or river in the distance. So he didn't waste any more time. He also didn't want to hurry too much because a turned ankle could kill him in this situation. In fact, I should have brought Petra along just in case. He resolved to do that on future scouting missions.

The landscape was eerie. He saw no plants, no animals. Not even an insect. Is this world lifeless? Nick wondered again. Even deserts back home had cacti and scorpions and things. This place was more like a hot Antarctica. He went about halfway down the hill and took a long look.

It was fairly easy to tell that there was no water around. There just wasn't any good place for it to hide. Nick started circling Bare Hill, hoping to see something different. The light continued to fade rapidly, and the glow from Rudolph became noticeable again. It was in the southwest and setting rapidly at the moment, leaving only starlight to see by. Gritting his teeth a moment in worry, Nick pulled out the glowing metal marble Petra called a “flashlight.”

It did give him enough light to watch his footing, at least. Nick kept circling the hill. He was starting to lose hope of finding water, so he focused on finding a cave. The north slope would be best, so he continued walking and searching.

Finally, he had to admit defeat. He hadn't seen anything like a cave. Nick thought that was odd, but he didn't know geology. He had no idea what was going on here, especially with no water for erosion stuff. He headed uphill.

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It took him a long time to find his way back, so much so that he started to worry that he had gotten lost. He had a piece of accidental luck, though—he spotted the light from the other flashlight Petra had created. Apparently it ran off of the same settings as the first one. At any rate, Nick was grateful to be back. He checked on Petra at once, looking for the time.

Eight pm. I was walking for about an hour and a half. Nick gave in and opened the second bottle of water. He tried hard not to guzzle it, but finished off at least a third of the bottle before he could even bring himself to pause for breath. Desperately he screwed the cap back on and put it down.

I gotta figure out whether Petra can copy stuff. Can I give her some water and have her make more? Like, get hydrogen and oxygen from rocks or something? Do rocks have hydrogen and oxygen? Some of them must, right?

Gaah! I'm sorry, Mr. Peters, I'm sorry I didn't pay attention in chem class! You would so be gloating right now if you could see me.

Nick switched on the invisible cutting tool and started enlarging the quarry. Nick snorted at the thought. Quarry? This is a hole with delusions of grandeur. He shook his head and kept working.

For a while, he gave up on bricks and just tossed the rock out into a pile. That was more efficient in terms of digging the hole, but less so for making a wall to block the sun. Nick stopped once he was few feet down and frowned. He really didn't like how trapped he would be in the hole. If anything went wrong with his overhead cover, he was screwed. He wouldn't be able to scramble into the car or under it in time.

I wonder if I'm digging in a bad place. I mean, I'm not digging, I'm carving in solid rock. Nick paused and scratched his chin. His beard was going to be annoying, assuming he lived that long. No way was he risking his face by bringing it near an invisible blade that effortlessly cut through anything.

Nick checked the time, then forced himself to speed up. It was risky with the blade, but he only had so many hours before sunrise, and this hole had to be deep enough to hold him with the car door on top by then. He gave up on bricks again and went back to cutting other shapes. After a while, he figured out a trick where he cut a small notch first for a handle, then carved out as much as he could reach with the blade. When the piece came free, he hooked it by the notch and tossed it out of the hole. It ended up being a little faster than all the fumbling around with big pieces with sharp edges. A little twist of the wrist as he cut helped him to round off some corners a bit.

There's got to be a better way to do this, Nick thought, not for the first time. I guess I'm lucky that I can use Petra as a knife all night without running out of power. Still, I wish the bigger knife wasn't so expensive.

Nick kept an eye on the time. He also remembered to use the note-taking app to put down that sunset had happened at 6:24 pm. It wasn't exact, but it was something.

Digging the hole in a reasonable time would have been impossible if not for the sharpness of Petra's blade. He could slash through the rock as if it weren't even there. If he could just get at the back side to cut bricks free it would go even faster.

His project looked like a foxhole to him. Maybe it was; Nick had never looked up the exact definition. Is it a foxhole if nobody's shooting at you?

The hole was about four feet wide and deep now. Carving steps up to ground level didn't take much more effort and made it easier to move around. Seeing how the rock was so solid, Nick decided to try making a tunnel, giving him a rugged stone roof.

Five feet deep. Nick knew he could fit inside easily now. He dragged the loose car door over and cursed when he realized that he hadn't left a narrow enough gap to support the door at ground level. The opening was too wide for the door to reach across. This is gonna be a pain.

Six feet deep, and Nick was starting to dig the tunnel. It was crazy, but he might actually finish by sunrise, at least enough to use the space safely. He was getting into a rhythm of cutting out wedges of stone small enough to throw. He cut himself several times on sharp edges, gripping the pieces, but fortunately none of the cuts were deep. It was killing him not to rush, but it might literally kill him if he did rush. He didn't think it was likely that Petra knew how to heal wounds.

The tunnel was narrow, but headed north into Bare Hill three feet by the time the sky began to lighten. Nick blinked, surprised. He was pretty tired from hauling rocks all night, but at least the activity had helped to keep him warm. He stumbled up out of the hole, and set to work moving his meager supplies down into a small space he had dug on the east side. Once he had shifted everything small, he started cutting up the car.

The door came off first; now Nick had both of the left side doors of the Explorer to work with. The roof was even better; it was wide enough to span the tunnel entrance, though it was triangular and didn't cover everything. A big piece of the back seat came loose; he would have to use it for a bed. There really wasn't room for it yet, but he wasn't going to come out again until sunset, so blocking off his exit temporarily was just fine. He could keep on cutting stone for as long as he could stay awake and the power held out.

Nick carefully laid out the solar panels on the ground nearby, propped up at an angle that he guessed would get them the most sunlight all day. At 8:13 am, it was close enough to sunrise that Nick got down in the hole and pulled the covers into place. He had been up all night. He wasn't sure that he'd be able to sleep, knowing he was on an alien planet that was trying to kill him.

Nick watched the charge on Petra start to tick up again on her display. The Death Star had risen. Tuesday morning on Earth, Day 2 on Planet BigBall. Time to try coaxing more information out of Petra.