Nick headed back to his artificial cave, feeling grim. I think I'm safer just staying underground, so long as I can get fresh air. Maybe there's water underground, still. It's... Nick shuddered. If it had been a lifeless moon or something already, I would have just died. I should be grateful there's still air to breathe.

Doesn't change anything. I still need to haul ass if I'm going to survive a week. And who knows? Maybe the portal will reopen.

Nick seriously doubted that, though. The creation of all the portals on Market Street looked really random. He didn't think he had much hope of rescue that way.

Well, look on the bright side, he told himself. I'm out in space, out in the wider galaxy. There could be aliens all over. Maybe someday I can build a radio and call a space smuggler or something going my way. Petra probably knows how to make those, right? Alien radios?

Nick grimaced, tired of struggling to stay positive. I'm late with my meds, he remembered. I've got to stretch them out, taper off as best I can with the little I have. Four doses. That's all I've got. He sighed. This is going to suck.

He opened up his foxhole cover and started tossing rocks out, making room. Then he took Petra's blade to more of the remains of the Ford. There's a lot of iron and aluminum to scavenge here. Maybe there's even copper wiring for lights or something.

Nick paused, and tried to come up with a plan. When should I sleep? I can only work outdoors at night. Then again, now that I have the tunnel, I'm not going to spend much time out here. But this stupid planet has a fourteen hour day. I guess sleep during the daytime? Or just...whenever I'm tired?

Nick focused on moving the rest of the rocks outside, then stared at the starry sky for a few minutes until the chill started getting to him. Shivering, he went down into the tunnel and got back to digging.

He was getting more efficient at it, he could tell. His cuts were smoother, and he had more of a rhythm. Every so often he would print out the corroding metal, or step outside to discharge the oxygen that had built up. Who knew rocks had so much oxygen in them?

The hydrogen Petra had detected was still twelve feet away. Then ten. Eight. Six. His cloned phone alarm warned him that sunrise was approaching, so he went out to relieve himself again and pulled a few more pieces of the car into the foxhole.

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There wasn't a real reason to stop, so Nick just kept digging. Four feet to go. Two feet to go. One foot to go. It was getting pretty stifling in the tunnel. Another Search showed that most of the rock in front of him was rich in hydrogen, so he set Petra to eating it. Another foot of tunnel excavated, and Nick stopped to try to get Petra to Copy water.

He had saved the setting, so he didn't have to spill more water onto the input port. He pressed Y when it was time to confirm. Then he held his breath.

Water started dribbling from Petra's output port.

Eagerly, Nick got his face under the flow and started catching the water in his mouth. Thank God. All too soon the flow stopped, and Nick realized that he needed cups or buckets or something. He took a few minutes to sit and bask in his victory before doing anything else, though. I won't die of thirst.

He went back to the car seat and sat down, Petra's tablet in his lap. He started paging through the menus again. He checked on Search, and starting putting in different elements. Iron was pretty common in the rocks. There didn't seem to be much aluminum or copper, but what there was seemed to be concentrated in a couple of spots. He would have to dig downward for a good while to get to the copper, in particular.

He searched for lots of other substances with gibberish labels. Whenever he spotted a concentration of something he didn't already have, he made a note so that he could aim for it. I guess I'm a miner now. But a miner with a total cheat code. I know where everything is, at least if it is nearby. I'll just have to collect stuff and then see what I can build.

I should definitely keep trying to find better digging tools Petra can make, though. Maybe I can make the Blade of Awesome eventually. Or maybe I can just get an absorber thing that eats everything you feed it.

Nick went back to drawing pictures. Sooner or later, he would figure it out.

* *

By sunset, Nick had excavated a few more feet and stocked up on hydrogen. He taught Petra to make thin stone bottles and got ten of them lined up against one wall and ready to catch water as it poured out of Petra's printer/output.

It turned out not to be enough. The water filled all ten bottles and kept coming; Nick held it to his mouth and guzzled as much as he could, but some still spilled on the ground before he figured out how to abort production. It was verysatisfying to have drunk enough water, finally. He put stone lids on the bottles so that the contents wouldn't evaporate in the sweltering heat.

Then, crossing his fingers, he asked Petra to copy an apple. There weren't enough resources. He tried a snack bar, with the same result. Getting worried, he worked his way through most of the groceries. Food had too many ingredients, apparently. Tiny amounts of a bunch of things were missing, even though most of the material was available.

I wish I had a way to override. Tell Petra to make it anyway, just leave out the missing bits. But who knows if that would make poison instead of food?

Nick went back to digging.