After a couple of weeks passed without any new elements or substances getting mined, Nick was getting convinced that he needed to travel. It was the only way he would ever make some of the items in Petra's extensive list of blueprints, or templates... or whatever they were.

At first he wanted a flying car, but after a while he determined that wasn't going to work, at least with the approaches he was thinking of. Petra's range was limited, and while there were repeaters that could be made, they got progressively more expensive with distance, both in materials and power consumption. Just chaining repeaters together wouldn't work for some reason. So, he had to shelve that idea for the moment. Instead, he would have to walk.

Nick rigged up a harness with a whole set of lights and a battery—that was expensive. But eventually he got a proof of concept that some of Petra's creations could function for a while so long as Nick was there to steer them, even if Petra was far away. Using his portable floodlight, Nick could walk easily in the darkness, but the power drain was big enough that he needed to scale back his design a fair bit.

Once he got the new battery fully charged, he tested how long it would last in the simpler lighting rig. As soon as he got an answer more than eight hours, Nick declared that good enough. It was time to do more exploring.

With good lighting, Nick could scout Bare Hill by night for hours at a time. At first, he didn't go more than two hours away from home, and he was careful to shut everything down and bring Petra and one solar panel with him, just in case of calamity. It would at least be possible to restart in another location if he couldn't get back home for some reason like a turned ankle or broken leg, even if doing so would really suck.

Every so often during a walk, he would have Petra do a search for different resources. He wasn't expecting to get much new, because Bare Hill looked pretty much the same all over. He had hopes that the valley might have a different kind of stone, at least.

He was about to give up and turn back when he got a hit: a new element that hadn't been up on Bare Hill. He mined for a few minutes, then got worried about his ability to return home before sunrise. It was time for a big decision.

Do I stay here and make a new shelter? Or do I book it for home and trust that I can make it? Nick eyed the hills to the east, trying to estimate how much extra time their shadows would buy him.

What decided him was the threat of not making it. If he was close but not close enough, the sun would rise and he wouldn't have anything for protection; the hill was too barren. He'd fry. Here in the valley, he was confident that he could build at least a minimal shelter from the daylight in time. Having made the decision, he got to work at once.

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A large boulder gave him a head start. Crouching down on the west side of it, he started to dig. Weeks of practice had given him a lot of efficiency in the work. He rapidly scooped chunks of rock out of the ground and piled them up on the east side of his chosen spot, building a wall using the boulder as a starting point. He carved into the boulder itself too, and soon had at least the start of an overhang, buying him more time if needed.

The work warded off the chill of the night as he hurried. He was confident he could do it in time, but it was still his life on the line. He couldn't afford to screw up. There was no time to relax. Nick dug.

If I'd known I was going to do this, I would have brought more of the guys. The Masons and Diggers and Tunnel Rats would have been very helpful here, but he hadn't wanted to lug them along on a scouting trip. Petra had plenty of power to run the blade all night, and Nick took full advantage.

He had found from experience that he didn't have to cut out neat bricks. He could chop out irregular lumps and then with two swipes give them parallel smooth sides, enough for stacking purposes. He wasn't trying to win any architecture awards.

The sky began to lighten, and Nick dug deeper into the boulder as insurance. He was worried about digging too far and punching a hole all the way through, but even being cautious of that, he still had enough of an overhang to get him through the morning. He started stacking rocks on the west side of his growing bolthole.

Sunrise. Nick was eyeing the lengths of shadows probably far too often, and it was slowing him down a bit. But he had growing confidence that he would have shade all day. He would use his lighting rig itself as a partial cover.

The chill turned to heat. Nick started sweating profusely. I've gotten too used to the air-conditioning back home, he thought. Power cylinders were some kind of heat engine, and Nick had figured out that with enough power he could afford to run one of them backwards, to cool the tunnels in the daytime.

Just as he was finishing up, he got a complication. He had intended to dig another foot or two downward during the day, but an odd sound gave him pause. After a moment he figured out why: he'd hit the water table.

Fortunately it wasn't pressurized, and didn't come shooting up out the ground like a geyser. Nick worked around it, and settled in for the day. He carved one stone into a cup. (It took a few tries.) Then he made another. A bit of work got him a trickle of pure water using the ground water as a start and purifying it.

It was a good thing, too. Nick had forgotten how damned hot the surface was in the daytime. He might have gotten sick from dehydration before the day was over, but for the ready supply of water.

After a miserable day, the Death Star finally sank behind the hills to the west, and Nick packed up to head for home. He looked at his little bolthole with some satisfaction. I can come back tomorrow night and improve the space. It's good to have a backup location.

Nick set out uphill, eager to find out what he could build with the new element he had found.