Petra finally had enough ingredients to replicate the can of tomato soup. As soon as he had rigged up a simple stove, he dug in. Even without crackers, it was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. He could almost hear his guts gasping in relief.

There was no one to see, and none of Petra's cameras were pointed at him. He was completely alone on the planet. There was absolutely no evidence that Nick cried over getting to eat soup again. None.

As soon as he had wiped his eyes, Nick had Petra make half a dozen cans and lined them up on a stone shelf proudly. His pathetic larder had just gotten a tiny bit less pathetic. He looked longingly at the other two cans of soup. One was chicken noodle and the other was vegetable. Someday, he promised himself.

The next day, at second sunset, Nick headed for the bolthole. This time he was bringing some of the guys. When he arrived, he sat on the boulder, pulled out Petra's pad, and started directing his crew, beginning with Mason. He was determined to bring back as much of the new element as he could carry. He spent the whole night improving the bolthole, then slept fitfully inside for the six and a half hours of daylight. The days were definitely getting longer. Petra's alarm woke him at sunset, and he started mining.

He was limited by the water table, and ended up strip mining the surface, going almost down to the water, and covering it back up whenever he exposed any. Seven and a half hours later, he retreated to the bolthole and had the guys start expanding it farther. While that was going on, Nick hunted through Petra's menus, trying to see what else he would be able to make.

As usual, there were several options that Nick had absolutely no idea what they would do. He would tap on a menu item labeled in gibberish letters, and then try combinations like decreasing or increasing the power cost, decreasing the time, extending the range... anything he could think of.

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He even asked Petra if she could replicate herself, and the answer was yes—but the cost in materials was absolutely enormous. He counted eleven new substances he had yet to encounter. That's all right, that's kind of a boss level challenge anyway.

Something nearby in the menu caught his eye, though; it would expand Petra's abilities in some non-obvious fashion. That tugged at his curiosity. The cost was staggering, but with another week of mining, he could just about pull it off. He thought about it, even as he selected other items for later printing.

First I'll make sure I have enough material for a couple of hundred cans of tomato soup. Then we'll see. Nick had his priorities.

Thanks to the Diggers and Tunnel Rats, Petra could strip mine for the new element round the clock, fourteen hours a day. Nick made a trip back home with as much as he could carry, leaving the guys to keep working for as long as their energy held out. The new element wasn't anything distinctive—one shiny, gray metal looked much like another, to him.

He took a day to relax in the air-conditioning and check on where he was at. He updated his log, wrote up lists of the new options, and stared at photos of home. He played all his voicemail a few more times.

Man, I would kill to have some books to read. Especially science and engineering books, the practical hands-on kind. And, being wildly optimistic here, one on agriculture.

Nick had saved the seeds from the first apple he had eaten, and made damned sure Petra had the pattern stored. He had already made a few grow lamps that looked like sunlight on Earth as near as he could estimate, and figured out how to add timers on a twenty-four hour cycle. Making a steady water supply of the right amount looked doable as well.

The sticking point was dirt. Nick didn't know squat about farming, but he was pretty sure you couldn't grow an apple tree in gravel or sand. You needed soil, and fertilizer and shit like that. Nick had a vague idea copied form that movie he'd seen, and if he had to, he would actually use his shit to fertilize a plant. Which was gross, but Nick would do a hell of a lot just to have something green and growing around. Petra could replicate apples, or would with another substance or two. But if he wanted to see and feel and smell leaves, he would have to grow them.

Nick packed up at sunset and headed back to the strip mine.