《I Got A Rock》


 Chapter 1: Aliens on Market Street

    Nick left his apartment and headed for the bus stop. The morning rush hour was in full swing. Market Street was worse than usual, completely at a standstill, filled with bumper-to-bumper traffic as far as he could see in the northbound lane. It did not bode well for the bus'' ability to get to him in a reasonable amount of time. He wasn''t due at work for a long time yet, though, so he could be a lot more relaxed than many people stuck in traffic.


    He waited at the bus stop for over five minutes, but when not a single car had moved in that much time, Nick knew that something was seriously wrong. Since there wasn''t any chance of missing the bus, he decided to walk to the next stop to see whether he could spot the reason for the traffic jam.


    It was a nice morning, sunny and cool, but promising to warm up later in the day. Nick settled his backpack and started along the sidewalk. He zipped up his blue windbreaker against the breeze.


    Several minutes later, Nick got a good look at the size of the problem. The next bus stop was just before a major intersection, and from there he could see the source of the trouble at a glance. The traffic lights in both directions were dark.


    It was a complete disaster. One might think that people would have sense enough to take turns at the intersection, and keep things flowing, but no. The giant expanse of asphalt looked like one of those traffic puzzle games with the difficulty set on ¡°impossible.¡±


    It was ridiculous. Cars pointed at every angle, with barely inches of clearance anywhere. There must have been over fifty cars snarled up, completely blocking traffic. Nick surveyed the mess. Then he peered back down Market Street. The bus had no hope of coming in the next thirty minutes, at least. It would take him well over an hour to walk all the way to his destination.


    He looked around. Nobody else was at the bus stop. Maybe people had retreated into the shops to avoid the morning chill, or maybe they had given up in despair and walked elsewhere to catch a bus on another route. Some of the buildings nearest the corner also seemed to be without power, though it was hard to tell in the morning light.


    The intersection of two major city streets, Market and Commercial, was completely jammed¡ªduring morning rush hour, no less. Even if police and repair crews were coming to help, they would have to stop blocks away and approach on foot even to get started. It was the perfect example of a colossal snafu. He couldn''t begin to guess how many thousands of people were going to have a bad day because of some wire breaking somewhere.


    Nick turned his head back and forth, seeing idiot drivers trying to squeeze into the intersection from three directions and making everything even worse. This was never going to resolve on its own. Nick waited a few more moments to see if anything changed, then sighed.


    To hell with it.


    Nick wasn''t a bold person usually, but this was just common sense. He marched out into the mess, weaving his way past cars that honked at him and each other, and took up a position directly in front of one of the access points, stopping any more westbound traffic on Commercial from entering the intersection. He waited until a small gap oozed open in front of him, then held up his hand to signal eastbound traffic on Commercial to stop, while waving for the northbound lane of Market to keep coming.


    At first, nothing seemed to happen. The change was almost imperceptible. But, very slowly, a few cars managed to creep out of the intersection, and it got a tiny bit easier for others to move. One car made it all the way through from Market Street. Then another. Then another. Nick started counting. Once he got to twelve cars, he held up his hand to stop the next one and walked in front of it. Switching, he started helping westbound cars on Commercial that wanted to turn left onto Market. After the left turn lane had emptied, he switched again and beckoned to the eastbound traffic.


    He wondered if the other cars would keep on screwing things up, because he couldn''t watch all the lanes at once. People seemed to get the idea, though, and within another few minutes, traffic was moving almost normally. Nick would count a dozen cars passing in one direction, then stop the next and switch to another lane, walking back and forth and using his body to force at least one lane to do the right thing at any given time.


    It was fun, actually. Two guys in a pickup truck started clapping and cheering at him when it was their turn to pass by him on the way through. Other cars honked. Most importantly, the rest of the traffic followed his directions, and people started getting to where they needed to be in a timely fashion. Nick grinned at the well-wishers but couldn''t spare a hand to wave back. Eventually his bus appeared, but since there was still no sign of police or engineers coming to fix the problem, Nick let the bus go on without him and kept at it.


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    It felt good.


    He was just about to stop northbound traffic for the tenth time when a loud sizzling sound almost deafened him.


    Something slashed the air. A line was gouged in the asphalt as if by a giant, invisible knife. Something like a wall but with a giant screen TV appeared above it, stretching for a dozen yards or more, diagonally across the intersection. Nick looked that way and found himself staring at a desert, weirdly lit by excessively reddish light.


    Huh?


    More hissing cut the air, and more walls appeared. They weren''t lined up neatly; it was as if someone had given a toddler a bread knife and told them to go to town on their birthday cake. Nick got glimpses of tundra, a starry night, a futuristic city full of aliens, and more.


    These look like...portals to other places. Like in science fiction.


    One of the cars passing by had gotten cut in half by a portal diagonally; Nick watched the back half roll forward into the portal and tumble down an embankment on another planet. The front half was nowhere to be seen, maybe in the street on the other side of...whatever that was.


    A hot wind blew into the intersection from the desert.


    An explosion in the alien city tore through a couple of buildings, and judging by the smoke, it wasn''t the first one. A dozen aliens came running out of that portal into the intersection. Nick tried to process that.


    There were aliens on Market Street.


    They were humanoid, or running on two legs at least. Their outfits were greenish and so was their skin. They might have had antennae. Nick didn''t have time for much more than a glance because so much else was going on. Another portal appeared; it opened onto fog, and mist was pouring out of it into the intersection, reducing visibility by the moment.


    The extraterrestrials fanned out, looking around wildly, and then one pointed at a portal that showed a forest. That one shouted something in a strange language, and all the aliens ran that way, diving into the woods. A few stragglers ran out of the alien city onto the pavement. Another explosion in the alien city happened much closer to the portal. Nick''s brain tried to catch up with events.


    ¡°WHAT THE F¡ª?¡±


    Thunder boomed as if Nick were at ground zero for a lightning strike; his hearing was knocked out almost completely. It was sheer luck that he happened to be looking in the right direction to see something big, round, and green slam into a car waiting on Market Street. The car was totaled instantly, and the driver was almost certainly dead. Nick wasn''t even sure which wall the green death ball had shot out of.


    Nick didn''t know which way to go to get out of this craziness. Several aliens ran towards him, then stopped uncertainly, looking around in confusion. What the hell, Nick thought, and pointed at the forest portal, waving the aliens that way with his other hand. One of them hesitantly followed his lead, then apparently caught sight of one of its fellows in the forest, and called out excitedly to the others.


    ¡°Nazook!¡± One of them said to him, bowing its head, then ran for the forest. A few more followed. Another one said the same thing in passing.


    ¡°You''re welcome!¡± Nick called after them. He glanced at the alien city just in time to see something green hurtling his way. ¡°Oh, shit!¡± He dove to his right.


    There was another explosion, and the blast picked Nick up and threw him through a portal. It was the same dark hillside the half-car had fallen into. He tumbled down the slope a ways, collecting bruises for a few seconds until he managed to slide to a stop against a rock outcropping. He looked around, staring.


    It was nighttime, and unfamiliar stars shone overhead. A blue nebula about the size of the full moon hung over the horizon. There was dirt, gravel and rock beneath him. The hill extended down for at least a half mile, and when he turned around, he saw that it went up at least the same distance. An irregular polygon lit the hillside with light from Market Street.


    This is amazing.


    A second or two passed.


    Get the hell back up there, idiot! He screamed at himself mentally.


    Nick scrambled to his feet and started back up the hillside. It was steep enough to be a pain, but not enough to stop him. It did slow him down, but fortunately he didn''t have far to go.


    ¡°Kazabish?¡±


    He could see the silhouette of one of the aliens. Its voice had a higher pitch than the other green aliens that had spoken to him. It was peering down at him without stepping through the portal. Another, taller alien ran up beside... her? Her, Nick guessed. The other one must be a guy. ¡°Kozal, Tek! Kozal!¡± The guy alien shouted at the girl alien.


    At no point did Nick let any of this craziness slow him down from his mad rush uphill. The two aliens were having a frantic argument now. The girl alien pointed at Nick, and the guy alien shook his head and started pulling her away. She struggled, shouting the whole time. There was another explosion behind her, but she kept from falling through with the help of the guy alien.


    Her eyes widened, and something in her tone changed. Frantically she grabbed at some sort of bandolier she was wearing, and pulled something out of a pocket in it. Immediately she threw it through the portal towards him. ¡°Banag!¡± she shouted, and for all that she was an alien, it sounded as if she was apologizing. She let the guy alien yank her out of view.


    Nick charged the last few feet and jumped for the asphalt of Market Street.


    A split second before he got there, the portal vanished.

 Chapter 2: What Are Our Assets?

    Nick landed on the alien hillside, lost his footing and slid downhill for several yards before he could stop. Everything was plunged into near-total darkness. He looked around wildly, blinking hard. His eyes stung a bit from dust or whatever.


    There''s got to be an exit, right? There''s got to be a way back, right?


    Nick fought down fear that was trying to turn into panic. I do not have time to panic, figure this OUT, Nick!


    He squinted, trying to look back uphill. The first order of business was to figure out exactly where the portal had been, so he could be ready if and when it opened up again. Gradually, his eyes adapted to the darkness.


    The stars were bright and plentiful; while there wasn''t enough light to see in color, Nick could soon make out the shapes of rocks and the hillside. All right. That''s a start. Think, Nick, think. Solid footing¡ªget solid footing. Don''t go sliding down the hill again.


    He moved around cautiously, feeling the ground through his sneakers, finding a spot that was almost level. He took a couple of deep breaths. Don''t panic. Work the problem.


    Look on the bright side¡ªat least you can breathe. The air''s got oxygen in it. There must be something like plants around. Nick looked this way and that, but couldn''t make out anything he recognized as trees, grass or bushes. The hillside seemed barren.


    Maybe there''s like, some super-moss or something that breathes really heavily? Oxygen doesn''t just sit around, right? Oxygen eats everything; if it doesn''t burn it, it rusts it. So the only way there''s oxygen is if there''s a supply. So don''t panic. One less thing to panic about.


    Nick felt a tremor in one leg. Nerves. Not now. He did his best to ignore it.


    Either that portal is going to open right back up, or it isn''t. If it doesn''t, or doesn''t soon, I need to keep myself alive in the meantime. I should stay right here, and plan, so I''m not wasting any time. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.


    Nick found himself starting to hyperventilate and held his breath for a few seconds to counter it. Not now. Panic once I''m safe. Look on the bright side, he urged himself. Look on the bright side. What''s the bright side?


    Nick looked up at the star-filled sky and took in the majestic sight. He took a slow breath. It was...amazing.


    I''m on another planet. I''m actually on another planet. I am the first human being ever to set foot on another goddamn planet! Eat your heart out, Neil Armstrong! They''re gonna remember me forever!


    Nick clung to that for a few moments, even though he worried that nobody might ever hear of him again or know what happened to him. It helped, a little, to remember that he should feel awe. This was an incredible, impossible situation, but in a way it was like a miracle, too.


    His thoughts were running all over the place and he struggled to focus. He thought about a science fiction movie he''d watched a while back. It was actually kind of similar to his situation now, come to think of it. One guy, alone, on another planet, working his ass off to survive. What did he say, again? ¡°That''s it, I''m gonna die here...so you work the problem. You solve the first problem in front of you, then the next step, then the next step...¡±


    It went something like that. Nick didn''t have a fantastic memory. He didn''t have a lot of wisdom, either, but he did know some movies and books. He reached for any advice he could think of, anything that would help him right now. Every survival adventure story he''d ever seen or read.


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    I should mark this spot, in case I have to leave and come back. I''m maybe fifteen feet downhill of where the portal appeared. Twenty feet, maybe? All right, thirty feet on the outside. Just remember that. This is the flattest spot, so make some kind of symbol with rocks.


    Nick bent over and started cautiously picking up loose rocks. Just my luck if a space spider bites me or something. He hadn''t seen any sign of movement by anything except him, though. Small mercies. Stepping carefully, he gathered a couple of dozen fist sized rocks and arranged them in an arrow pointing uphill. Then he rethought that, and rearranged it so that the arrow pointed downhill. If I have to move away from here, and someone somehow manages to open the portal and come looking for me, I should leave a trail. Just like a castaway on an island.


    Nick tried to think of the next good thing to do. What do I need? Oxygen, food, water, clothing, shelter, internet, a spaceship... Nick cut that meandering list short and tried again. What do I need the most?


    He felt the chill in the air and realized that shelter was probably a fairly high priority. Maybe I can find a cave or something? He wasn''t sure what else would work. The wind was picking up, and it was fairly bitter.


    He was running out of ideas. All right, try it another way. Nick reached for another movie memory: ¡°What are our assets?¡±


    Nick took a breath. He felt a tiny bit better to have a specific question to work on. Right. What ARE my assets? Nick mentally took stock of himself; unfortunately he did not randomly carry around a lighter, fishing line, a loaded pistol or all the other things the heroes in stories just happened to have on them when the shit hit the fan. He didn''t even have his backpack; he had set it down each time he changed position while he was directing traffic, and it wasn''t with him when he got blown through the portal.


    ¡°If only we had a wheelbarrow, that would be something!¡±


    Nick recalled the sight of half a car tumbling down the hill. Double checking that he probably could find the arrow again, Nick turned and started carefully stepping and sliding downhill, looking around. There was a faint yellow glow off to his left. Nick squinted and steered for it.


    It turned out to be the back half of the car; the cut edge looked perfectly straight, razor-sharp, and white-hot. Well, yellow hot, fading to orange. Half the back seat was there, the edge a bit molten and smoldering.


    Something squished underfoot as he stepped and bent down to peer inside. Nick jumped back, wondering if he had just found a native critter, but nothing was moving. He reached down, squinting, and picked it up.


    It was an apple.


    Eyes wide, Nick stuck his head in, looking in the back of the car, and found luck was with him for once. There were five bags of groceries. Half the contents had spilled out, and everything was a mess. But it was food. And a messy bit of shelter, to boot!


    ¡°Yes!¡± Nick was excited, but stifled his own voice out of instinct. He realized that there was basically nothing making noise around, beyond the wind whistling a bit. He was the loudest thing in the area. That might not be a good thing.


    He just stopped and listened for a while, until he was a little more confident some alien monster was not stampeding towards him.


    All right. What else have I got to work with? He thought back.


    The girl alien had thrown something to him. Maybe it would help, if he could find it. He hadn''t gotten more than a brief glimpse. It just looked like a rock to him.


    Nick climbed back out of the car, looked around and picked up a rock about the size of the one the alien threw at him. He faced downhill and mimicked the underhand toss he had seen, then watched the rock tumble downhill until he lost sight of it.


    Well, crap. It could be anywhere. Hell, it might even be the remote control to turn the portal back on or something! I''ve got to find it.


    Nick headed back uphill to start at the highest spot it could possibly be. He had a couple of minutes of panic when he realized that he couldn''t find the arrow he had made out of rocks, but eventually he literally stumbled across it. He kicked a few rocks out of place doing so, so he crouched down to put them back.


    Maybe it was because his eyes were better adapted to the dark, or maybe the sky was getting a little brighter, but this time he noticed that one of the rocks he had picked up looked and felt a bit different from the others. He pulled it close to his face and squinted at it, then felt along its surface. It was smoother, and maybe a little bit warmer than the other rocks.


    This is the one the girl alien threw at me. Like she was apologizing, or something. Maybe she said in alien, ¡°I''m sorry, but this is the best I can do for you!¡± And then she threw me this. I could have used a communicator, or a ray gun, or hell, even a sword... but no.


    I got a rock.

 Chapter 3: Getting More Rocks

    The rock just barely squeezed into the pocket of his windbreaker, and he zipped it shut. He hoped that in daylight it would be easier to see what it was and how it worked. For the moment, he had to do something about the chill.


    The wilderness survival stories Nick had read always took place in a forest. They assumed that there would be wood, streams, small animals to hunt or berries to eat. Here, there was none of that. He had a possibly useless alien rock, and half of a Ford Explorer, groceries included.


    I should inventory the food. Nick didn''t know how long the groceries would have to last. Of course, if there wasn''t anything edible on this planet he was likely going to starve. Though, maybe he would get rescued, or the portal would reopen.


    There was a half gallon of milk and four bottles of fizzy water. Nick hated fizzy water, but that was all there was to drink, so he would have to make do until he found a stream or something and decided it was safe. Some of the food would have moisture in it, too, like the applesauce.


    It felt chilly enough that the cold cuts might keep, though he would eat those first to be on the safe side. The raw hamburger was probably useless unless he figured out a fire surprisingly quickly. The eggs were a total loss; Nick set those, the cold cuts and the hamburger outside on the ground to get them out of the way. Hopefully his body heat would help warm up the interior and he didn''t want the smell of things rotting ruining his air.


    There were a few cans of soup and four cans of tuna. There wasn''t a can opener, though. That will be a comedy routine when I get around to it, he guessed.


    A bag of sliced cheese was welcome, as was a bag of potato chips. Nick surveyed the rest of the groceries as well, feeling despair pushing against him. As usual, from long habit, he pushed back. Despair never got nothin'' done, his father had told him a thousand times. The old man probably had suffered from depression, too.


    Oh shit, my meds.


    Nick grimaced, thinking about the pill case in his backpack back on Earth. He fought panic with dark humor.


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    It might as well be on another planet. Ba-dum ssss. Thank you, thank you, I''ll be here all week!


    ...Hopefully not.


    Not having his meds was going to be a serious issue. It wouldn''t kill him, not by itself. Depression would make him not fight as hard to survive, though. Well, I survived without meds for twenty-four years before I tried them. I can do it again.


    I hope it warms up in the morning. Wait, how long will it be until morning? Nick chewed his lip a moment. Is this planet even turning? It has to, otherwise the dark side would be frozen and the other side baked. So how fast is it turning? Nick looked up at the sky again.


    Man, I wish I had my phone. It was lost with his backpack, probably lying on Market Street until someone picked it up. Without it, he could only guess at how fast time was passing. Still, he squinted at the blue nebula, trying to decide if it was higher in the sky than before. He crouched down and sighted along the car roof, trying to memorize how the sky looked so that he could compare in a little while.


    Nick was wide awake, since it was still morning to him. The chill was starting to really bother him, though, so he set out to gather rocks. He had no idea how hard it would be to build a windbreak, but anything was better than nothing. And if he ended up dragging himself along without his meds, having a boring, repetitive task to do would help. He could just mindlessly trudge on, being productive very slowly.


    While gathering rocks, he discovered that half of the driver''s-side door had fallen off and not slid very far downhill. It was heavier than he would have liked, but Nick dragged it back to the Explorer and propped it up to partly block the giant hole in the car running from the front of the driver''s side to the right side back passenger door. It was definitely better than nothing. He could climb in the back and use it to halfway block off the smaller gap across the axis of the car, between the two rear doors.


    Rocks were a good thing to gather, in part because there wasn''t much else available. But rocks could make a wall for defense, or be thrown for offense. Nick kept himself to easily accessible rocks, though; he didn''t want to waste a huge amount of energy digging up one rock when he would need hundreds.


    Finally, Nick was getting colder faster than the exercise was warming him, so he retreated to the Explorer to huddle for warmth.


    In the morning, I can explore a lot more. He checked his star sight line, and the stars had definitely moved. It was hard to tell, but Nick thought this planet might be turning faster than Earth, so a day could turn out to be significantly shorter here. As a slight benefit, he now knew that he was on the south slope of the hill, and which way was east, where sunrise would come from.


    I hope the sun is warm here.

 Chapter 4: I Dub Thee

    Nick went over and over his plans for the alien day while he waited. He rearranged the meager food stores a few times. He thought about snacking, but was determined to be careful and do his very best to survive. That meant rationing the food to make it last as long as possible. Besides, it was barely midmorning for him. Maybe noon by now¡ªit was hard to tell.


    He kept peeking at the position of the blue nebula, the most obvious sight in the sky. After what felt like a couple of hours he got a surprise: a moon rose. It was clearly tracking faster through the sky than the stars; possibly two or three times as fast. The moon was small, more than a pinpoint but much smaller than Earth''s Moon appeared. It was, however, very bright.


    In fact, it was so bright that Nick started being able to perceive colors, faintly, and the hillside was noticeably easier to see. The moon cast obvious shadows as it rose higher, and Nick decided to brave the chill wind again and try to survey his surroundings. He climbed back out of the Explorer, putting a couple of packets of fig bars in his pocket as an emergency snack. He was getting paranoid about mishaps.


    NASA probably has, like, years of classes devoted to surviving on an alien planet, even though it''s all still hypothetical¡ªfor them, anyway. Me, I''ve got a handful of science fiction novels read and watched some cool movies. Plus, I''m no genius. I need to bring my A-game, because stupidity will probably get me killed real fast.


    He took his first real look around.


    He was on a hill surrounded by other hills as far as he could see. Nick couldn''t detect any curvature to the horizon, not that he expected one. Since he could breathe, the planet had to be big enough to hold air, and therefore to spawn the local version of flat Earthers. Flat...? Nick realized that he needed a name for this planet.


    He planted a foot on one of the tires of the Explorer and struck a pose. ¡°I, Nick Tomsun, claim this planet, and name it Planet BigBall, in the name of humanity, but only the cool humans.¡± He pointed at the overly bright little moon and declared, ¡°I dub thee Rudolph, the Moon of BigBall!¡±


    Nick looked over the surface of BigBall, and was not impressed. The hills were all fairly whitish, as if they had been bleached. He bent down and picked up one of the rocks, peering at it closely. What is this stuff, anyway? Chalk? Limestone? I don''t know anything about rocks. It looks like the...what was it...the Cliffs of Dover? In England.


    Too bad I have no idea what the Cliffs of Dover are made of.


    It bothered Nick that he didn''t see much of anything on the hills. No sign of trees, animals, or even rocks of different colors. There wasn''t any obvious water either¡ªno ponds, lakes, rivers, streams... He looked up. No clouds, even. Is this a desert planet? Am I on Dune or Tatooine or something? The air didn''t seem super-dry.


    Maybe I should climb to the top of the hill.


    It was a goal, at least. Nick set out at once, moving to keep himself warm, rubbing his arms occasionally. He kept an eye on the sky as he walked. Rudolph was definitely outpacing the blue nebula. He was determined that he would not get lost on Planet BigBall. He would stay on... call it Bare Hill.


    Bare Hill rose probably about a thousand feet above the lowest point he could see. The Explorer was maybe halfway up. A 500 ft climb was not exactly trivial, so Nick decided to go just a bit farther up than where the portal had appeared, and then maybe walk around the hill for a while.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    Some of the rocks were smooth, some weren''t. Nick didn''t know anything about geology, so he wasn''t sure if that was significant. Man, I miss search engines already. Maybe the wind or rain smooths things? If I''d known I was going to come here, I''d have studied harder in science class!


    Something moved in the corner of his vision.


    Nick whipped his head around, but couldn''t spot whatever it was. Aliens? Monsters? He held still, searching his field of view, wishing for more light. There!


    Nick ran towards the fluttering motion. He covered about half the distance and then slowed down. There was no sense in charging blind at some local life form. He was like that Greek philosopher, Xerox or whoever, with the getting halfway there and then half of that and then half of that... Finally he stopped and squinted.


    It was a piece of paper.


    The wind was trying to blow it away but it kept catching on rocks and some kind of little side winds. Nick walked up to it and grabbed it, then squinted at it, trying to read it by Rudolph-light. It took a minute, but he recognized it. This is that form the doc gave me for the referral!


    Nick felt hope surge in him. My backpack is here!


    It must have gotten blown through the portal at some point. But his backpack had been closed. Something opened it. That was worrisome.


    Immediately, Nick started searching for the backpack. He walked upwind, turning his gaze this way and that, and after a minute spotted another piece of paper. He grabbed it. This one turned out to be a receipt from the grocery store near his house. He folded the papers up and tucked them in a pocket. He might need them for something.


    Did some space monkey go through my bag and dump everything out? Nick began to hurry, even as he worried. He picked up a rock suitable for throwing, just in case.


    He spent a long time searching. Rudolph was getting pretty high up in the sky by the time he finally found it. His backpack looked as if a ninja had sliced a piece of it off, and a piece of everything inside as well. The edge looked scorched.


    Maybe it hit the edge of the portal on the way through? And it sliced through it just like a lightsaber. Man, that is really unsafe. It''s got to be some kind of OSHA violation.


    Nick took a minute to look through the contents, though he would need better light to do it properly. Reaching in, he gave himself a shallow cut accidentally and yanked his hand back, licking the wound nervously. It turned out that his laptop had about an eighth of it sheared off and was now a very expensive paperweight. Nick decided to keep everything, and carefully picked up his bag. He did his best to find his way back to the Explorer, using Rudolph and the blue nebula as navigation aids. There was an annoying sameness to a lot of the hillside, so it took a while. Finally he found the car again.


    Relieved, Nick climbed inside and sat down. He wasn''t terribly cold now. Maybe the wind was less biting? He wasn''t sure. In the relative safety of his little shelter, he held the pack up to the moonlight and started going through it. He looked first for the absolutely most important thing.


    His pill case was there, intact, closed, with his pills still inside. It was Tuesday, so he had pills in the boxes for Wednesday through Saturday. Four days. Four days of being motivated. Less, if I want to save some for a later emergency.


    Second priority was his phone. It was in there, too. Unfortunately, not only was the screen cracked, but it was just about out of battery if he recalled correctly. He didn''t even bother trying to turn it on until he had a reason to.


    He had seven-eighths of a laptop, i.e. a big flat brick. Well, it had metal in it so it might still be useful for something. It could be a tray, at least. Plus it had a proven very sharp edge.


    The rest of the contents of his bag included about four-fifths of a notebook and a couple of half-pens, a small Swiss Army Knife, a bunch of rubber bands, a couple of washcloths, a toothbrush and toothpaste (intact), a tiny puzzle cube on a keychain, some expired breath mints, and sixty-eight cents in loose change.


    Not a lot to conquer an alien world with.


    The sky to the east was beginning to brighten. Before long, the pre-dawn sky was plenty bright to see by, and Nick fumbled to unzip the pocket of his windbreaker and to squeeze out the alien rock. It was time to see what he could figure out.

 Chapter 5: We Will Rock You

    The first thing he noticed, now that he had light to see by, was that the rock was dark gray, but covered in some kind of decorations in a few colors: pink, yellow, and green. Nick didn''t think much of the color scheme. It looked like an avante-garde kid''s doodles, frankly.


    The next thing was the shape. At first he had thought it was just an irregular blob, but that wasn''t true at all. There were smooth curves, and sharp angles, and those angles looked far too neat and orderly to be random. It was vaguely cylindrical, kind of like a big crystal with five sides and two ends, and looked as if the whole thing had gotten a little melted.


    One end had a pattern of bumps that vaguely reminded Nick of a cheese grater or shoe soles designed for gripping. He noticed that they were hard like metal, but not very sharp; he didn''t cut himself touching them. On the other hand, after holding it there for a few seconds, it was actually hard to pull his palm off of that end. Even after he got his hand free, it almost felt as if it were being pulled back like a magnet. His palm had that crushed-in-a-waffle-iron sort of look afterward, too.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    The other end was very smooth and slippery, a complete contrast. It had very little color, looking almost black but a bit reflective. Nick couldn''t get anywhere staring at it, so he moved on to the sides.


    The decorations didn''t make any sense to him at first. He slowly turned the rock over, examining each of the five sides. Finally, he found a small, empty pink circle on the smallest side, and stared at it. It was less than half an inch across, but aside from that, it reminded him just a bit of an ON button, so he tried pressing it.


    Nothing happened. He pressed and held it; he pushed hard on it and tapped it. He tried double-tapping it. No reaction.


    Nick took a minute to turn the whole thing over in his hands and examine every side again. Maybe the circle wasn''t a button. But he couldn''t find anything else that suggested an approach. Nick scowled. He pressed the circle and said, ¡°testing one two three? Testing? Can anyone hear me?¡±


    He tapped the circle over and over. He tried swiping it sideways. He tried pressing lots of random other places. Nick was getting frustrated and bored. He started tapping out rhythms, like Shave And A Haircut, Calendar Girl, some classical piece he couldn''t remember the name of, and We Will Rock You.


    As soon as he pressed the circle short-short-long, the decorations changed.

 Chapter 6: Rock On

    The markings on that side of the rock rearranged themselves, clearing a large, empty, elliptical space in the middle. A long row of tiny bars lay to one side. The first ten were all green, and the rest, fifty or more, were pink. There was a square in one corner and a triangle in another one.


    Nick pressed one finger in the empty space for a moment. When he pulled his hand back, there was a green dot right where he had touched the rock. A touchscreen? A drawing pad? Nick traced out ¡°HELLO¡± with his fingertip and the word just sat there. Sighing, he tapped short-short-long again, and sure enough the oval cleared.


    It''s a start. At least it''s reacting now.


    Nick spent a while swiping, tapping, talking, whistling, trying to figure out what the rock did. The sky continued to brighten. It was hard to tell what the little changes in the markings meant. Some were obvious rearrangements, and some changes were very minor, like the way the row of tiny bars now had nine green and the rest pink.


    Wait.


    Crap.


    That''s a battery charge, isn''t it? And it''s draining. It did remind him of symbols used in electronics. Nick started breathing fast and forced himself to calm back down. All right, so I''ve got nine units left. Is there any way to recharge this? A gas tank? A hand crank or something?


    Nick added the battery symbol to his button pressing experiments. He wasn''t being very systematic about it. He was sure there were combinations he wasn''t trying. I should write down notes...but the pens are busted.


    Finally, Nick stumbled on an effective action: he swiped the power bar from green to pink while holding the triangle, and then five tiny images appeared, arranged in a pentagon. The first image was circled, and had a box and another battery meter symbol, so Nick tapped that. When nothing happened, he tapped it twice. Still nothing.


    Tapping short-short-long on the box icon caused...something. The color specks all over the rock kept shifting, looking not quite random. Nick held his breath, waiting. After a few moments, though, the symbols froze, except for a messy pattern of dots that was blinking.


    Is it stuck? I think it''s stuck. Nick wondered if the damned rock was broken. Maybe it''s some kind of safety feature, like ¡°fasten your seatbelt.¡± Dude, if I had a seat belt, believe me, I''d... Nick stopped, then leaned over and peered at the piece of the back seat of the Explorer that was intact. It did have a seatbelt...


    ¡°Nah, that can''t be it,¡± Nick said aloud. ¡°It needs something. Fuel? Dude, if I had fuel, I wouldn''t have to do this.¡± The rock continued to flash stubbornly. ¡°Dude, seriously, there''s nothing to eat. You don''t...you don''t eat food, do you? Human food?¡±


    Running out of ideas, Nick picked up the apple he had stepped on, and started pressing it against every part of the alien device he could. ¡°Come on, nom nom nom, you know you want it...¡± When he pressed the apple against the cheese-grater side, it stuck there. Nick was watching closely, so he spotted it when two of the little color pixels shifted slightly. Then the apple fell off.


    ¡°Seriously?¡± Nick tried to put the apple against the cheese-grater again but it wouldn''t stick, and none of the dots moved any more. He examined the apple, and found that it had a waffle-iron look to it, with maybe a few small bits of the apple missing.


    Nick looked the whole thing over again. ¡°I don''t think feeding it the groceries is going to do much, but...¡± He made an offering of the raw hamburger, and essentially the same thing happened. A few bits of hamburger stuck to the grater and the rest fell off. Two of the other pixels shifted a tiny bit, Nick was pretty sure.


    ¡°Okay, on the right track, but it doesn''t much like the food....Hm. It''s a rock. Does it want to eat other rocks?¡± Nick climbed out of the Explorer to grab a few of the rocks he had collected, and had to squint. A wind was blowing out of the east now, and it was actually warm. The chill rapidly left his bones.


    Whoa, the sun isn''t even up yet and it''s this bright? No wonder Rudolph is so...bright... Nick got a sinking feeling. He turned east and the sky was bright enough that sunrise was probably imminent.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    This...could be bad.


    Nick didn''t have any better shelter than the car, so he climbed back in. The alien rock had eaten a ragged patch of the carpet where he had set it down, but didn''t seem to be interested in taking any more. Okay, it needs ingredients. Try this on for size, space rock.


    This time, Nick could actually see the rock disappearing. He had no idea where it was going, though. Where does it keep its stomach? Its...garage? Storage closet? The alien device ate about a quarter of the rock before it dropped the rest. Several of the color pixels had definitely changed that time.


    If I knew how to read these color dots, it might tell me what it''s hungry for. What else can I offer it? Nick looked at his meager supplies, and decided to try the busted laptop. That appeared to be the right choice.


    The alien device clamped on and started chewing its way through to the motherboard at once. Nick could see more color dots moving, and realized that they were starting to pair up. Maybe...one dot for how much you need, and the other dot for how much you have so far? When they match, it''s all fed?


    The display stopped blinking. Nick held his breath and waited. The battery symbol now had two circles around it. As he stared, he realized that there was a speck on one circle that was moving very slowly. Also, the big battery meter was down to six green bars.


    He nervously eyed the very bright horizon and decided that he had better not look in that direction any more. He concentrated on the space rock. I need a name for this. Pet Rock, maybe? The speck had traveled about halfway around the circle, and there were five green bars left.


    This had better do something good before it runs out of power...


    The barest flicker of movement caught his eye. Nick turned the device so that the smooth side was facing him, and discovered that some kind of cylinder was being extruded, very, very slowly. His jaw dropped.


    I think this thing is a 3D printer! Is it making a battery for itself? How would that work? Nick was definitely fuzzy on his science, but he was pretty sure things couldn''t magically feed themselves energy.


    There were now three green bars left. Nick crouched down so that no part of him was in direct sunlight, even through the window glass. He was getting worried that the radiation would be distinctly unhealthy. Maybe I should be hiding behind the hill...but then what happens if the sun rises high enough to light up the whole hill? I need a cave.


    The cylinder detached from the device. There were two green bars left. Nick hefted the cylinder, wondering what it was. It seemed to be covered in some kind of rectangular grid pattern. He poked and prodded at it, feeling slightly rough edges and tiny bumps.


    Then apparently he did something right by accident, as the cylinder unrolled into a long flat sheet in his hands, and became somewhat rigid as soon as it finished. I hope this is what I think it is. Nick gripped it firmly at one end, and then slowly lifted it so that the higher end got into the path of the morning sunlight that was streaming over Nick''s head. He watched the battery meter on the main device, staring at the two green bars remaining. Reluctantly, he lifted a bit more of the panel into the sunlight.


    The third green bar came back.


    Nick let out a huge gasp of relief, and carefully propped the alien solar panel up so that half of it was in the sunlight. For the next several minutes at least, he sat and watched the meter as the fourth green bar came back, then the fifth. Nick waited, nervously staying out of the light, as the car began to seriously warm up.


    In this heat, any food that needed to be kept cold was going to be ruined before long. Nick opened up the cold cuts and stuffed himself, washing it down with milk. He wanted to mess with the device some more, but disciplined himself to wait until he had at least nine green bars again. It would suck to drain it dead just as he was about to save it.


    I wonder if I can make a second solar panel. It didn''t eat all of the laptop... Once the device had enough power in his estimation, Nick repeated the process as best he could. It took longer for the device to eat whatever it needed from the remainder of the laptop, but it got there eventually. He carefully watched the color markers lining up again.


    Probably elements? Like, the big gap on that one means it needs a lot of...silicon, maybe? Or metal? That gap between pixels didn''t start closing until the device was eating the motherboard again.


    Man, I wish I were a science nerd right now...Good thing this sucker is user-friendly.


    The second solar panel was extruded with five green bars remaining on the device''s battery. Nick tried to unroll it, but couldn''t figure out how he had managed it the first time. It ended up taking him at least twice as long to duplicate whatever move he had done, and even after it happened, he still didn''t know exactly what he had done right.


    The good news was, propping up the second panel next to the first caused the battery marks to go green twice as fast. The bad news was, more and more of the car''s interior was getting exposed to direct sunlight. Nick belatedly pulled the car door inside and cowered underneath it.


    As he started sweating, Nick wondered whether he was going to die from being cooked to death.


    Shut up, he told his depression out of habit. He gripped the device, and set out to discover what else it could do for him.

 Chapter 7: Petra

    All right. It''s got juice. What next?


    He practiced the few actions that had gotten responses from Pet Rock. Hm, ''Pet Rock'' is a bit clumsy. How about...Petra? Nick liked that better. It was easier to say. Plus, he knew he was going to start feeling lonely at some point, and he didn''t have a volleyball to make friends with, so giving the alien device a human name felt like a good move. Better to steer the crazy than to let it wander on its own.


    Nick wished he had a user manual for Petra. Aliens probably don''t speak English. He wondered if there was any way to make it easier to use this thing.


    I made a power source by swiping on the power readout. Can I make a better display by swiping the display itself?


    Nick''s first attempts in that direction went nowhere. He squinted at the little colored specks, trying to understand them. He cycled through the five options in what he guessed was the power menu. Pinching and zooming didn''t do anything. He had to take a break to cope with the frustration.


    He''d eaten about as much as he could stand to. His options for activity were really limited. He didn''t have much else to do besides sweat and watch the possibly harmful sunbeams creep slowly across the car''s interior.


    I wonder what happened back on Earth? Nick''s mind wandered a bit. Did it make the news? Did a bunch of people live stream an alien invasion? Did all the portals close, or just the one leading here? Is the Army blocking off portals on Market Street? Is NASA trying to send me a signal?


    Nick fished out his phone and considered turning it on. I wonder if I can get Petra to recharge my phone? I''d hate to just feed it to her as raw materials, though I might have to in the end.


    When he felt that his patience had recharged somewhat, he went back to tinkering with the display. On and on he tapped, swiped, pinched and zoomed. He turned Petra in his hands and examined the color dots from every angle.


    Finally, he tried twisting two fingers like turning a knob or something, and that had an effect. He added that to the mix, and eventually he managed to call up a different menu. This time there were four icons arranged in a square. Then he had to figure out what they meant.


    One of the options looked a bit like the display face of Petra itself, so he selected it, giving him more options. The first was a big rectangle that looked like a more detailed display. There was an icon in the shape of Petra for scale; it looked as if the new display would be about the size of a tablet, which would be much easier to work with than the tiny area he was dealing with now.


    Now the question is, can I afford it? What does it need? Nick selected it and waited for the pixels to stop moving, then the display froze and blinked, indicating (probably) that Petra needed food. Nick squinted, and counted sixteen pairs that needed to match up. Again he started with the apple and the hamburger, and that took care of a couple of pairs that were not far apart to begin with. Next up was the rock, and a pair of gray dots got a lot closer together before Petra ¡°spit out¡± the rest of the rock.


    Grey for stone? Grey for, what, calcium or iron or something? What is Petra getting out of the rocks I''m feeding her?


    There was still a ways to go to finish feeding Petra. Nick offered the laptop again, and the alien device ate a large fraction of what was left. That paired up a few more pixels, but there were still five pairs to go. Nick tried another rock, and it got nibbled a little, but apparently it was similar enough to the first rock that there wasn''t much to be gained from it.


    Nick tried a few things: the carpet, a rag he found in the back of the Explorer, and a tire iron. Petra clung to the tire iron and ate about a three inch length of one spoke before letting go. Nick took careful note of the orange pixels that moved. Orange is iron, apparently?This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    There were still three ¡°foods¡± that Petra needed in order to build the display. Nick tried the plastic and fake leather of the car seat. Not enough. What else do I have to try? Nick fished out the three pennies and Petra ate about two and a half.That shade of beige is for copper. I guess I''m making progress.


    Nick went through everything he could think of without opening up the rest of the human food. He had a suspicion that there wouldn''t be much of anything useful in the groceries that wasn''t already in either the apple or the hamburger. He dug through the bags, even fed the bags to Petra.


    The car door was starting to get uncomfortably hot to the touch. Nick carefully squirmed out of his windbreaker and used it to protect himself from the heat. I''m not sure I''m going to make it through the day at this rate. He was starting to sweat heavily. I need water.


    Water?


    Nick offered bits of his sweat and Petra liked something in it. So he opened one of the precious bottles of fizzy water and poured a tiny bit on the device''s intake. No response.


    It''s gotta be salt or something. Chlorine? Sodium? Something else? Nick tried spit, but it didn''t do anything. He stared in frustration at the few pixels that still needed to move.


    One of them inched a bit closer on its own.


    Huh? What is that, a delayed reaction? He peered at the intake; there was nothing touching it but air.


    Air.


    Maybe the thing needed nitrogen. Did BigBall have nitrogen in its atmosphere? Probably. The air didn''t taste like pure oxygen to him. Wait, doesn''t meat have nitrates or nitrites or something? It should have gotten nitrogen from those. So maybe it''s not nitrogen.


    Nick had no clue what else was in air, on Earth or on BigBall. He kept wiping sweat off and feeding it to Petra while the chlorine counter or whatever it was slowly inched closer to completion, as did the mysterious air counter.


    One more ingredient. Think, Nick. What haven''t you tried so far? Nick thought of a couple of icky options involving bodily fluids and discarded them for the moment. He wasn''t that desperate, yet.


    Nick made another pass searching the car, mindful of the sunlight. He was about to give up when he spotted something wedged under the bit of front seat that had crumpled from the weight put on it. It was a small cardboard box. He would never have noticed it if the sunlight were not so godawful bright.


    He flinched as a bit of the back of his hand got into the sunlight for a moment. Right through the glass, he thought, suppressing a hiss. It didn''t hurt much, but that was from a split second of exposure. Nick was getting really hampered by the need to stay completely in shadow.


    It took a while, but he managed to grip the thin cardboard without dropping it, and pulled it free. It turned out to be a good discovery: a box of vitamins. It had probably fallen out of a grocery bag during the tumble downhill. If it''s only a tiny amount, a multivitamin might just do the trick... Nick opened the box and the bottle, and fed Petra a vitamin.


    The pixels barely budged before Petra let go. Nick tried again with a different pill, with the same effect. A third pill was rejected. Nick was starting to feel really dejected when he picked up the foil wrap that had sealed the bottle and offered it to Petra.


    Petra gobbled it up, and Nick carefully peeled every little bit off the bottle. Aluminum, I think? There''s got to be aluminum in the car frame, right? Nobody makes heavy iron cars any more.


    It made Nick nervous to risk his shield, but he pressed Petra up against the edge of the car door, doing his best to keep the device in shadow. Petra clamped on, and proceeded to eat a handful of the door. When she let go, Nick examined the readout and found to his great relief that the red dots were now aligned.


    All that remained was to keep feeding Petra his sweat and waiting for her to inhale enough air for whatever she needed. It seemed to take forever, but finally, Petra started 3D printing the new display.


    Even with two solar panels that were now in full sun, the battery charge was dropping. Construction seemed really slow, but so long as it didn''t stop, Nick schooled himself to patience. He kept an eye on the power level, hoping that it wouldn''t be catastrophic if he ran out entirely before the printing finished. He guessed optimistically that Petra had an automatic feature to pause printing if she was starving for power.


    I''m running out of exotic materials to feed the device, Nick brooded. What else do I want to make? I guess that depends on what the new display shows me. The interior of the Explorer was positively sweltering, and the sun was close to its high point. Nick decided to name it the Death Star.


    He was halfway through his first day on Planet BigBall, and his survival very probably depended entirely on how much he could get Petra to do for him.

 Chapter 8: Tablet

    The roof was doing a decent job of shielding him from the harsh light of the Death Star but that was going to end when the light started shining directly in through the giant hole in the car, which faced roughly southwest. He was going to have to move very carefully and not let the heavy door fall off of him. It was his only defense against getting fried to a crisp.


    The Death Star had moved noticeably past its peak by the time Petra finished printing the big cylinder. Nick failed to catch it when it detached, and it almost rolled out of the car before he managed to nab it. Again his skin stung just from very brief exposure, but at least the cylinder seemed none the worse for wear.


    Nick then spent a frustratingly long while trying to open the cylinder. He couldn''t figure out the trick; it had happened basically accidentally with each of the solar panels. Eventually, he realized that he was getting stuck in mental ruts and not trying the right things. He deliberately got more random with his poking and prodding, and finally found a press-and-swipe combination that triggered the damned thing to unroll into a rigid, flat board somewhat like a tablet. Mouth dry, Nick held the board up and hoped that it would help him.


    At first it was blank. Nick had to go through another round of experimental tapping, but before long had found the ''on-switch'' pattern. Colored pixels appeared on the surface and moved around seemingly randomly before settling into a specific layout. Nick checked, and the arrangement exactly matched the display on Petra, just scaled up.


    All right, that''s a little progress. Let''s see if Petra will give me more details now that there''s more room to display things. Nick started trying to rearrange the dots and icons. Many items wouldn''t move, but a few did, and he started to make neat rows as best he could. There was still the big square with four offerings, one of which was the display panel. Nick cycled to the next one and tried to figure out what it was. It seemed to be a mostly blank oval, but when he selected it, a larger oval appeared in the center of the ¡°screen.¡±


    The color pixels rearranged themselves more than once while he fiddled with the ¡°main menu.¡± Each corner of the square summoned a different pattern. He got a new surprise when a few pixels moved just before he touched them, and he could steer them with his fingertip hovering a few millimeters above the surface. When he held his finger still, several pixels seemed to rock back and forth.


    Waiting for confirmation, maybe? Nick tried lots of gestures, and it turned out swirling his finger in a circle triggered the action. One color pixel of each pair joined a line across the top, and their matches took up various positions beneath their partner.


    Fill levels! It was finally showing him how much of everything he needed to make stuff, and in a neat row instead of the random spatter it was using before. Nick selected each of the main menu items, and when he chose a submenu, the upper row of dots held still while the others moved up and down, giving him a rough idea of what he needed and how expensive each thing would be.


    Or it would, if he could finish figuring out what the color code was. That also didn''t solve the problem of where he was going to get the raw materials, but at least he kind of knew what he needed now.


    Hell, I''m stranded on an alien planet with nothing but an alien rock, and I''ve already convinced it to make solar panels so it doesn''t starve, and a better control panel. The situation may not cut me any slack but I gotta take my wins where I can find them. Now, what else can this thing do? What can I make?This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    Nick really wished he could write down notes. He tried reciting stuff to himself.


    ¡°Okay, the first menu has the blank oval. Then, I got the power menu, and the square means solar panel. I don''t know what the other four shapes are for. Now, I''ve got the display menu, with the tablet and three other things in a square. I wish I could build simple stuff like stone walls. What would that be under?¡±


    Nick spent a lot of time trying a bunch of things and getting nowhere. He called up every symbol in each of the menus and checked how much stuff they seemed to need to build. I guess I could try building things at random, but I''m gonna run out of ingredients. It doesn''t much like the food, so...


    Nick''s gaze fell on the bag of potato chips, then he closed his eyes. ¡°Nick, you dumbass. Potato chips have salt. You don''t have to feed Petra your goddamn sweat.¡± He shook his head at his stupidity. He hadn''t actually wasted any time because Petra had to suck something out of the air and that went slowly. That helped him feel a bit less mad at himself.


    Taking a breath, he went back to the very first screen, with the big blank oval he could write in. Or draw in, he realized. He got an idea. No idea if this will work. It all depends on how smart Petra is.


    Working as carefully as he could on the tablet, Nick drew Petra''s distinctive shape. Next to the output, he drew a few cubes, and next to the input, a rock. After a moment''s thought, he carefully drew a specific rock that he had handy. His artwork wasn''t great, but it was something.


    Now, how to I tell Petra I''m done drawing? Nick pressed the square, the triangle, and the square in the corners in a bunch of ways. At one point he erased his whole damned drawing, and had to make it again.


    While he worked, he carefully shifted the solar panels so that they were still in full sunlight. He noticed that the charge on Petra was up to over twenty bars and climbing. I wonder what happens when it gets to full charge? Can I make extra batteries? It was something to try later.


    Finally, he stumbled onto the ¡°done now¡± command. It was the "swirl finger in a spiral" move he had done before but forgot. He picked up the rock and pressed it to the intake on the alien device. Then Nick watched to see whether anything happened.


    He almost missed it at first. He had to squint, but realized that his artwork had shifted a tiny bit. Petra was neatening up the drawing, making the image of herself¡ªitself¡ªmore exact, aligning the cubes'' edges at their right angles. It looked like Petra was waiting for some final command. Poking and prodding for a while, Nick was rewarded when the display flashed a few times.


    Petra proceeded to eat the rock in its entirety and build little cubes in the exact proportion to Petra that he had drawn. He caught the first one, held it up and grinned.


    ¡°All right! Good girl, Petra! Now, all I need is to do this a million times and build a stone house out of bricks, and then I''ll be safe from the Death Star.¡±


    I wonder how long this is going to take. Maybe I should time it. Nick hesitated before turning on his phone. I can check the time too, and try to estimate how long a day is on BigBall by checking again when the Death Star sets. Having two things he could do made him feel better about risking his low phone battery on it. He fed Petra the other rock he had handy, checked that more cubes were coming out, and pressed the power button on his phone.


    Seven percent. Make it count. It turned out to be just after six p.m. according to his phone. I''ve only been here for about eight hours. Feels like forever.


    Nick tapped through menus and started the timer just as a cube fell off of Petra, and stopped it when the next cube fell. Thirteen seconds for a stone cube a bit over an inch on a side. That''s...going to take a long time. He hoped that he could find a way to speed that up.


    He was about to turn his phone off again when he saw the battery percentage drop to six percent. But that wasn''t what made him freeze in shock. The icon next to the battery captured his interest completely.


    He had bars.

 Chapter 9: E.T. Phone Home

    How?


    Nick stared at his phone. It''s got to be a glitch, right? Shaking his head in disbelief, he dialed 911. Maybe the portal didn''t close completely? Maybe I can get a signal through!


    His hopes were dashed when he got nothing but silence. He hung up and called his friend Brian. Nothing. Just silence.


    It''s just a glitch.


    The disappointment was crushing. Nick hadn''t been braced for this¡ªsudden hope, suddenly dashed. His mind filled with despair. I''m going to die here.


    The word die snapped him out of it. It was too extreme a reaction, even if it was realistic. He had had thoughts like that a lot in the past, and had learned to recognize them. Depression is a lying liar that lies. Shut up, brain.


    Nick took a look at Petra''s display tablet. Does this thing have a clock I can compare with? He checked the symbols currently visible, and saw an icon along one edge that he hadn''t seen before. It was a small rectangle with slightly rounded corners...


    No way. Nick tapped short-short-long on the new icon. His phone started ringing.


    How in the hell...? Nick picked up his phone. It said ''unknown number,'' and after a moment of staring at it, he accepted the call. ¡°Hello?¡±


    ¡°Hello?¡± It was his own voice echoed back.


    ¡°Is this...Petra?¡±Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    ¡°Is this...Petra?¡±


    ¡°I''m Nick.¡±


    ¡°I''m Nick.¡±


    ¡°No, I''m Nick. You''re Petra.¡±


    ¡°No, I''m Nick. You''re Petra.¡±


    She doesn''t know what she''s saying, Nick concluded. It''s just an echo. He took the phone away from his ear and looked at his screen. He was about to hang up the call when his phone kind of went nuts.


    It started moving through menus, as if he had tapped the Settings icon and was searching for something. It scrolled and selected like a runaway train, faster and faster. Then it slowed down again, as it looked like every app on his phone was starting up, and then shutting down, one after another, and the apps themselves didn''t seem to boot up any faster than normal.


    That took a while. At one point every photo Nick had saved flashed onto the screen, one after another, so fast it was strobing. Nick watched and waited. He noticed that his phone battery was now at five percent. Then four percent. It''s going to run out of juice and shut down, he thought with dread.


    Finally Petra ran out of apps to poke at, and his phone settled down. Nick reached for the power button, but hesitated. He took a look at Petra''s display. Half of the display suddenly changed, and showed the home screen on his phone.


    ¡°Did you just clone my phone?¡± Nick asked the alien device. Hesitantly, he reached out and tapped on the clock icon, just as if Petra''s display were a touch screen just like his phone.


    The clock app came up. Nick started the stopwatch and then paused it, scrolled through his alarms, and then exited the app. It worked. Petra had cloned his phone.


    ¡°Holy...shit!¡± Nick blinked hard and stared at it, wondering if it was real. Then he noticed that the phone was down to three percent charge. ¡°Uh-oh.¡± He tapped through the Settings menu until he could call up the battery percentage.


    ¡°Hey, Petra, can you recharge my phone?¡± Nick swiped Petra''s green and pink power readout, then tapped on the phone''s battery percentage. Is Petra smart enough to take the hint? It didn''t seem to work, though, so when the battery showed two percent left, Nick turned his phone off.


    The clone of his phone shrank back down to the icon he had tapped on the alien display. Petra wasn''t done, though. The whole display started flashing, then filled with static for a few moments. When it cleared, everything had been rearranged.


    Petra''s controls were now written in English.

 Chapter 10: Some Basics

    Well, sort of.


    The display showed the date in Arabic numerals and a clock set on Eastern Standard Time. Next to it was a battery symbol that said twelve percent. Below that was also a gear icon with the word Settings next to it, written in the same font his phone used.


    The rest of it...still needed some work. There were jumbles of letters in place of other labels. But Nick was grateful for what he had. I had no idea Petra could even do that! It probably hasn''t ever encountered Earth technology before.


    All right...I guess I''m looking at the main menu. Guess I''ll start tapping on icons and see what they do. Which I was already doing, but hopefully I''ll figure things out faster now.


    The confusing sequences to turn things on or off or select were replaced by simple taps like his phone used. That was a relief. Nick wiped sweat from his brow, checked the position of shadows, and tried to figure out his next step.


    Okay, Petra builds things. She builds solar panels, displays, and stone cubes on demand. So the main menu should be a build menu, right? Nick tapped through options.


    The solar panels were from what he guessed was the ¡°power¡± menu. Apparently there were five different ways to get power¡ªfive different things to build. Then the ¡°display¡± menu had four options. Nick was happy enough with the tablet for now.


    Out of curiosity he selected a solar panel again. On the left, the fill bars were replaced with color coded listings in random letters. ¡°ACX¡± was written in orange lettering, so apparently that was iron. More useful, it gave numbers now: 0/12 for iron. Nick discovered that he could tap on a label and it would call up a keyboard. He could edit the labels, so he replaced ¡°ACX¡± with ¡°iron¡± and ¡°GUO¡± with ¡°copper¡± for starters, then remembered that red was aluminum and fixed the label there as well.


    Nick selected everything Petra offered, one at a time, and looked at each cost. Some items needed only a few materials, some needed a dozen or more. The amounts varied widely as well. He found an option that had only one cost, but the amount was ¡°24/???¡± currently, which was confusing. A while later he looked at it again and saw that it was ¡°25/???¡± now.


    It''s the energy cost, Nick realized. Energy, I can make more of. So anything that shows up like that I can make if I wait for enough sunlight.


    It turned out to be Petra''s option for reshaping given materials, like turning irregular rocks into stone cubes. Nick used the blank oval to draw a few things, like a small brick, a long rod, and a bigger cube. He called up the keyboard and typed ¡°save,¡± and after a few tries, he got it to work. Petra would remember his drawings, and he could call them up again from the Files option.


    Man, I wish I had brought more rocks inside the car, but I didn''t realize that I was going to want them. Well, I guessed that I might, I just didn''t expect the Death Star to make it so dangerous to step outside and go to the rock pile like five feet away.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    Nick hunted for options for increasing the size of Petra''s input or output, or speed of production. He tried typing English words into the search function (complete with little magnifying glass icon.) Unfortunately, Petra seemed to have gotten indigestion when trying to absorb the information in his phone. From the various apps, she had gotten a lot of English words, but didn''t know what most of them meant. Hence the gibberish letters, which was probably smarter than putting a random English word there that might be actively wrong.


    Now I wish I had downloaded a dictionary and a science book to my phone.


    Nick gave up on getting Petra to describe the parts she needed, and instead tried straight for the goal. He drew one of the stone cubes, and then drew another cube twice as large, and labeled them A and B. He figured he could just keep demanding bigger cubes until Petra was unable to provide them.


    He had a more pressing problem, though¡ªhe was seriously starting to run out of shadows to hide in. Already some of the cans of food were getting irradiated because he didn''t have room to stash all of the groceries behind him. He''d drunk as much milk as he could stomach, and one of the four bottles of fizzy water, just trying to keep up with what he was sweating away.


    I need more cover. How do I get Petra to build me some sheets of something reflective? Actually, I wonder how thick a sheet of metal would have to be to block this. With nothing better to do, Nick told Petra to make another small cube and fed it the tire iron. When that was done, he then tried to convey in a drawing that he wanted a brick half as thick as the cube and twice as wide and tall. Petra did it, but didn''t stop asking for more iron when it consumed the first iron cube, until it had eaten the same amount again of the tire iron.


    Nick had screwed up his math somehow. He argued with himself a while, getting annoyed, before he decided to make the new brick one fourth as thick, and twice as wide and tall. That did the trick.


    It took him a while to express ¡°now do that same thing to this shape,¡± but eventually he fed Petra the two-inch by two-inch iron plate and got out a thinner 4-inch by 4-inch plate. It was interesting to watch, since Petra had to move the plate back and forth, because it was wider than her ¡°output port¡± or whatever he should call it.


    It looked awkward and slow, though, so Nick got an idea. He didn''t actually need the plate to be square, so he told Petra to make the next one circular and sat back to watch and see what it would do. He wasn''t disappointed.


    Petra created a small disk that fit her output, then turned it edge on (Nick had no idea how she was moving it), and began rotating it, adding steadily to the rim. The steel was still thick enough to be rigid, and was now about the size of a small pot lid. Since it seemed like he could recycle the iron as many times as he wanted, he set it up to use all of the metal in the tire iron and make the biggest disk it could without being so thin it bent easily.


    It turned out to be only about two feet in diameter: not much of a shield, but better than nothing. If he made it to sunset, he would have all night to take the car apart and make metal sheeting out of it. Too bad the engine block didn''t come with the back half. That would have been plenty.


    Some of the food was going bad rapidly in the heat, and the stink was getting annoying. Nick pitched it out of the car, leaving it to sizzle on the hot ground. Maybe I should have tried to cook hamburgers.


    Having the ¡°pot lid¡± did help, though. Nick was feeling more and more urgency about escaping the interior of the car without getting fried. He squinted as best he could without singeing his face on the hot glass, and there was a small amount of shadow on the east side of the car now. Not much, but it was growing.


    It was time to open the door.

 Chapter 11: Out of the Frying Pan

    The left rear door and its frame both looked intact. If he was able to open it, he could try to ooze out of the car and get underneath it while staying in shadow. He took another look at the slender shadow and grimaced. It''s gonna feel like I''m in a movie where they''re trying to get past those lasers in art heists.


    Cautiously, Nick tried the door. It wouldn''t budge. I was afraid of that. Well, worst case, I can have Petra eat the locking mechanism. Or the whole door...


    Nick really wanted to drink a second bottle of water, but he held off, since those might be the last three bottles of water he ever had. He had to keep wiping sweat off his hands while he ¡°programmed¡± Petra as best he could. Never thought I''d be a programmer. Nick grimaced. Because I suck at it.


    It took a while, but he managed to pry the interior covering off of the door, exposing the metal. Then the alien device got to work eating the aluminum and spinning up a shield. At the same time, Nick tried to make sense of the locking mechanism, to figure out how to work it manually. It was pretty easy to see how to break it, but getting it to unlock without power was going to be a matter of fiddling with springs and such. Nick wasn''t worried about breaking it, just about breaking it while it was still locked.


    Writing off the door as a total loss, Nick waited until Petra had finished with the aluminum disk, then set it to eating the window glass and spitting out glass cubes. It was taking a while, and Nick was seriously considering just breaking the glass, since he could scoop it up later if he had to feed it to the space rock. Eventually, though, Petra cleared the window glass from the side door, leaving a hole to climb through.


    Now came the hard part. Nick carefully checked to make sure there wasn''t a jagged edge of glass ready to cut him to ribbons. He was reluctant to remove his shirt; he didn''t want any more bare skin than he had to have, but he needed something to grip hot surfaces with. In the end he managed to rip out a piece of the carpet and use that like an oven mitt.Stolen story; please report.


    The aluminum disk badly needed a handle. Gripping it by the edge would expose his fingers to the rays of the Death Star. He reached out with care and set the disk down outside, leaning against the door, hoping that it wouldn''t roll away or anything. It stayed put.


    After all that effort to make the aluminum disk, Nick pulled up the rest of the carpet as a better shield. He stuck it out the window, verifying that it wouldn''t immediately burst into flames or anything in the sunlight. Next, he started dropping a lot of the food on the hot ground, hopefully in the shade of the car now. The water bottles were too precious to risk dropping, so Nick stuffed them carefully into the big pockets of his windbreaker.


    He was about ready to climb out when he realized he had forgotten to pick up Petra. I absolutely cannot risk Petra being hurt by landing hard. Granted, it''s a rock, and the girl alien thought nothing of throwing it on the ground for me. But it''s not like I have a spare handy.


    In the end, he decided to abandon one water bottle and hope it wasn''t destroyed by sunlight, rather than risk leaving Petra behind. Wrapping the carpet over his head and shoulders, and gripping the window frame with carpet scraps, Nick rolled out the window and tumbled to the ground.


    HOT!


    Nick started to jump up from the burning hot ground, but flinched back when it felt as if his hair almost caught fire. He got his feet under him, his sneakers taking the worst of the heat, and hissed at the pain in one arm. It can''t be that bad, it can''t be that bad, it stings like a motherfucker but it can''t be that bad...


    It was a couple of minutes before he could do anything besides concentrate on walling off the pain. Finally, his breath got a little less ragged, and he learned how much he could shift his feet safely. He very cautiously pulled the carpet off of him and set it on the ground, partly under the car where it felt slightly cooler.


    ¡°Out of the frying pan,¡± he whispered, then gave up on talking for the moment.

 Chapter 12: Bricks

    I gotta do something. I''m getting cooked, here.


    Nick knew that eventually the Death Star would sink low enough in the sky to start shining under the car again. He had to get some kind of wall set up before then. Hiding behind a tire didn''t seem like enough protection.


    He pulled out the display and started drawing. If I can make big bricks, and do it fast enough, that would be best. I don''t think I have enough metal for real safety. Better to use rock.


    He sketched a normal-sized brick next to a drawing of Petra for scale, confirmed it, then set Petra down on the ground, hoping the heat didn''t damage the input port or whatever it was. It took a while, but Petra eventually built the brick, even though it was bigger than she was. Nick found out that the brick was just as hot as the rest of the ground when he tried to pick it up. But he was even more interested in the hole Petra had made in the ground.


    It wasn''t very large; Petra fit inside, but not much else would. Nick moved the device a little to one side. He used the display to start up a stopwatch and told Petra to make another brick. It ended up taking fifty-eight seconds. It was worse than that, though, because apparently chewing up rock and spitting out a brick consumed power faster than the solar panels were taking it in. If he waited for the charge to recover, it was more like two minutes for a brick.


    There''s got to be a better way to do this, Nick thought, but had no idea what else to do. He spent the next hour making thirty bricks and a shallow, uneven hole in the ground. The shadow of the Explorer grew larger and he got a bit of breathing room. He stacked the bricks into a tiny wall on the west side of the hole. Every little bit helps, I guess.


    While waiting for a brick to finish, Nick searched the menus again. He decided to name the feature he was using ''Reshape'' and added that label to the menu entry. Then he brooded a bit.


    I''m being stupid. It shouldn''t be this hard. I''m making Petra eat a bunch of rock, break it down into whatever, and then reassemble a rock in the shape of a brick. That''s got to be hella inefficient. If I could get her to just carve bricks out of the ground, that would be faster and cheaper energy-wise, I bet.


    He tried to draw what he wanted, but Petra didn''t seem to get the idea. If he had been trying to get through wood, he would have drawn a saw and started cutting bricks himself, but this was rock. For a while he was stumped.


    His mind started to wander to thoughts of home. He tried to push them down, because he was in a crisis, but his brain apparently needed a break from survival efforts. So he gave up and thought about the people he''d left behind.


    Brian was his best friend, and the one who would miss him the most. He''d probably always wonder what had become of him. Nick wished he could leave him a message. One hell of a note, he mused.


    Josh was a fun guy to hang out with, but didn''t take much of anything seriously. Josh would be sad for a few minutes, and curious for a few more, and then Nick would be out of his mind, probably forever. That''s just how Josh was.


    Nick had a lot of friends like that. He really hadn''t tried for deeper in a long time. And fortunately, he was between girlfriends, so there wasn''t a woman he was leaving in the lurch.


    As for family, Nick had a sister who hated him, and a Dad who he hated. Mom had passed away when he was twelve, and his father hadn''t coped very well. Nick learned a lot of self-reliance early on, and freely admitted that he had some trust issues.


    Of the people he knew, he was probably the best suited to be stuck all alone on an alien planet. So he was glad it was him and not them. I hope they at least drink a toast to me or something. I hope Brian decides I''m in a better place or something.


    He ruminated for a few more minutes, getting maudlin, until he recognized depression trying to mess him up again, and pushed it away. Enough with the pity party. I''ve got work to do, if I''m going to survive until sunset.


    Nick tried again to explain to Petra that he didn''t want the brick built up atom by atom, just cut out of the ground. Finally, he got an inspiration. In the main oval, he drew Petra, a rock near the input, and two halves of the rock near the output. That hadn''t worked before, so to make it clearer, he wrote the word ¡°HELP¡± on the whole rock, and then ¡°HE¡± and ¡°LP¡± on the two pieces. Then he took the power cost and tried to shove it down.


    When nothing happened, he hit the label for the drawing and filled in ¡°CUT¡±. Then he tried again. This time he got a reaction.


    The first thing he saw was that the label had been rewritten ¡°Cut¡±. So Petra gets capital and small letters, he mused. Then the picture changed. Now it was a drawing of Petra, with something like a blade sticking out of the input port. Petra was about five inches long, and the blade looked to be a bit more than that. The display then gave him a prompt.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    Confirm (Y/N)?


    Nick almost entered ''Y'' right away, but made himself stop and think. If Petra''s going to have a knife blade, I should make sure to hold it carefully. He gripped the alien device firmly, then entered ''Y'' at the prompt.


    He felt a faint vibration and heard a soft hum, which seemed loud in the quiet of this planet. After a couple of moments, he started smelling something, like burnt electronics. Oh God, please don''t be burning yourself out, Petra! He pressed his lips into a thin line, took a breath, and then crouched down to cut at the ground.


    An invisible blade seemed to cut the rock like soft butter. He almost missed the cuts at first, they were so fine. He ended up making a bunch of shallow slashes to get the depression in the ground opened up a bit more. The pieces of rock that resulted had very sharp edges, so Nick had to be extremely careful picking them up. But pretty soon, his cuts were getting closer to rectangular, and he started carving out a little quarry right there next to the car.


    It took him probably an hour to get used to making reasonably well-shaped bricks, but once he got the hang of it, he could cut out at least a brick every minute. The size was limited by the length of the blade, but it was a damned sight better than one inch cubes. Best of all, the energy cost was something like 0.003 units. He had no way of knowing what the units actually meant, but he could tell he wasn''t going to be draining the battery quickly this way.


    He stacked bricks as he went, building a low wall to cover the gap between the damaged car and the ground, blocking the harsh sunlight that was creeping closer under the Explorer. He shook a little from relief when he realized that he was going to make it to nightfall.


    Of course, the night would bring its own dangers. It was hard to imagine feeling cold after all this blistering heat, but eight hours earlier, he had been shivering from the chill, and presumably it would happen again in a few hours. This planet is freeze and bake. How is life even possible here? Can something natural make the oxygen in the air?


    Nick checked the time, and the position of the Death Star in the sky. Then he tried to do some math. So...a day on BigBall is like...fourteen hours? That''s going to suck. I guess I''ll have to get used to it.


    Apparently the smell didn''t indicate any obvious problems. It had to be coming from Petra, because it persisted even in a hot breeze, even when Petra''s blade wasn''t touching anything but air. Ha, maybe Petra''s cutting the air. I wouldn''t put it past the little alien technological wonder.


    He kept practicing his stonecutting, and realized that his main limitation was making the cut in the back, where it was harder to reach. So he couldn''t make anything longer than the blade. I wonder if I can get Petra to make a longer blade. Or a separate device.


    At the thought, he turned off the blade and looked over the menu options again. Every once in a while, Petra seemed to grasp something and add labels. This time, Network was a menu option. When he selected it, it showed four items. Two of them had the same garbled code, ¡°VDK¡±, a third had ¡°OZG¡±, and the fourth read, ¡°Nick''s Phone.¡± Nick relabeled the ¡°VDK¡± items as ¡°Solar Panel 1¡± and ¡°Solar Panel 2¡±, and ¡°OZG¡± as ¡°tablet.¡± I wonder what kind of WiFi Petra does. She doesn''t need wires to get the power from the solar panels... Whatever. So long as it works, I don''t care.


    He tapped on the empty space below his phone as if to add a fifth item. It let him add the label ¡°Blade¡±, but it was grayed out compared to the others. Reconsidering, he changed the name to ¡°Cutter.¡± Maybe Petra would make the connection with ¡°Cut.¡± Then he went back to drawing, and tried to sketch out what he wanted.


    The Death Star was finally getting close to the horizon as Nick crouched behind his little stone wall, sketching. At last, he was able to save a design that Petra was willing to make. Then the cost came up, and he groaned.


    Apparently a ¡°Nick''s Blade of Wicked Sharpness¡± needed more ingredients than the solar panels and tablet combined. I don''t have that much copper left, for one thing. I could manage the iron, and whatever it''s getting out of the local rock, but I still don''t even know what some of these are.


    Nick sighed and looked at the lengthening shadows. When it gets dark, I''m going to have a hard time seeing things again. I should make a light. Nick doodled a star giving waves of light to a solar panel, and then a ball giving off those same waves. Petra didn''t react.


    ¡°I got nothin'', Boss,¡± he imagined Petra saying.


    Crap. If I can''t figure this out, all I''ll have for light is the stars and Rudolph and the flashlight on my...phone.


    Nick closed his eyes and shook his head a moment. Dumbass.


    Crossing his fingers, Nick wrote ¡°flashlight¡± in the drawing window, and pressed Done. He was rewarded with a new menu labeled Flashlight which had several adjustable options. Right away, Nick could figure out size and brightness, but a couple of others were less obvious.


    One of them had a slider that seemed to shift the way the light came out from a narrow beam to wide angle to all directions. Another option had a picture of a rainbow, with some kind of curve on it, and you could change the shape of the curve with a couple of controls. If he twisted it too far, the curve stuck out past the end of the rainbow, which seemed like a bad idea, so he adjusted it back in.


    Nick had no idea what the last two options did. He made selections at random, and then pressed Done. Petra showed the cost, and it seemed fairly modest compared to something like a solar panel. Nick saved his work for the moment. After sunset, he could get things out of the car to feed the alien device. He went back to cutting bricks while he waited.


    When the biggest shadows disappeared, the Death Star had truly set. Nick looked up and watched the sky change from whitish to black. Rudolph was high up and got more obvious as night fell. A wind started up, still warm, but cooling off.


    Nick felt the cooler air with a sigh of relief. I did it. I survived my first day.

 Chapter 13: A Night of Digging

    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.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    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¡ªhe 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.

 Chapter 14: Search

    Nick made sure that he had multiple lines of defense against sunlight. If he nodded off, he didn''t want to wake up scorched or irradiated. The best defense would be to keep enlarging his underground shelter and getting away from the opening to the surface, but Nick needed a rest.


    He pulled out Petra''s display and started tapping through menus, checking to see whether the alien device had figured out any more English. It had. There were new menu options called Charging, Copy, and Discharging, and Nick tapped on Charging curiously. That pulled up a list of mostly gibberish, but aluminum, iron, and copper were in the list, in that order. Are these all elements?


    The amounts of everything were set to zero. Nick selected iron. Nothing further happened, so he took one of the iron cubes he had made and put it to the input port. Petra promptly consumed it, and the amount of iron jumped to 35. Nothing came out, however. Where is she putting it? Nick wondered, not for the first time. Can she get full, or will she store an arbitrary amount of stuff?


    He tried Discharging next, and iron was the only entry in that list. When he selected it, Petra printed out a chunk of iron. Interestingly, it came out as a rod with two ends and six sides. Each end was in the shape of a hexagon. So that''s your default, huh? Nick couldn''t think of anything to do with that information, so he just shrugged. Aliens.


    Seeing Copy made Nick hopeful. He selected it, and nothing happened. He tilted Petra and poured a precious few drops of water into her input port. The display acted up for a few moments, then presented a line of gibberish letters followed by Confirm (Y/N)? Taking a chance, Nick typed Y.


    An ingredients list appeared, and it had only two entries, each with zero amount. Nick''s jaw dropped, and then he grinned. I need to find some hydrogen and oxygen, I guess? There''s oxygen in the air, because I''m breathing. Sure enough, the amount of the second ingredient ticked up to one unit after a few moments. Nick labeled that one oxygen, and the other one hydrogen, hoping that he was getting it right.


    He picked up a piece of rock he had cut and offered it to Petra. To his surprise, Petra consumed the rock completely, and the oxygen level went up. Nick blinked, confused. A rock made completely of oxygen? What? Nick peered at the walls around him. There were different kinds of stone in them. Nick tried a few bits of each kind that he saw. Petra kept eating them and the oxygen number kept going up, but no hydrogen.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Well, crap. Where am I going to get hydrogen from, then?


    Nick leaned back against a stone wall and stared at the alien device that had given him a chance. He spoke aloud for the first time in hours. ¡°Petra, I''m gonna need some help here. I need water.¡± He opened up the bottle he was working through and took a few more swallows, then forced himself to stop and put the cap back on.


    ¡°How smart are you, anyway? Are you, like, a person? Or are you just really awesome software?¡±


    Nick shifted position slightly and frowned. He hadn''t expected an answer, but he had to try lots of things that sounded stupid. It was the only way to hit whatever was going on in alien brains when they thought this thing up.


    He gently hit his head against the stone behind him a few times. ¡°Okay, stupid shit that makes no sense, coming right up.¡± He called up the Search box and typed HELP. Nothing happened. He tried a few dozen other words with no effect.


    Then he tried typing Search into the Search box, which called up a different Search box. Only instead of a keyboard with letters, this box had the list of materials. Nick stared at it for a little while. Do you understand now what ¡°search¡± means, Petra?


    Nick selected hydrogen and pressed Enter.


    For a split-second, he thought he felt something. Then most of Petra''s display lit up with a drawing. Petra was in the center of it. A body was next to it, exactly the size, shape and position of Nick himself. All of the groceries were visible too, along with the chair and carpet. Nick tried scrolling and it worked, then pinched to zoom out. A blob that was probably the car showed up in the image. The outline didn''t really match, but then, neither did the car any more, the way he had cut into it.


    A dashed line cut across the bottom of the image. It seemed to follow the outline of the foxhole, only about fifteen feet below it. Frowning, Nick picked up Petra and moved her back and forth. The image might be shifting. Nick zoomed back in, and did it again. Now the image was definitely moving.


    It''s live, and centered on Petra at all times. Nick scrolled until the dashed line was visible, and moved Petra again. The dashed line also moved. When Nick held Petra all the way in, at the spot where he had dug the farthest north, the very edge of the dashed line lit up in one place.


    Nick stared. Petra is scanning for hydrogen, and she found some deeper in!


    He stared at the wall of solid rock between him and what he needed to make water. I guess I''m doing a lot more digging tonight. The relief hit Nick hard, and he sagged back in the chair. He closed his eyes, just for a moment...

 Chapter 15: Drill

    Nick was in a sauna, and someone had locked him in. He pounded on the door, yelling. He tried breaking the door down, but it was as hard as stone. It was getting hard to breathe...


    Nick woke up, feeling wildly disoriented. Where am I? Everything was unfamiliar. He was so hot he felt as if he were in an oven. It took him a few seconds of staring around for reality to sink in.


    I can''t believe this is happening. Am I really stranded forever?


    Nick started to feel claustrophobic and panicky. No, no, no... A burning sensation in his foot snapped him out of it. He yanked his foot closer to him and looked around. A narrow shaft of harsh sunlight was stabbing down into the foxhole. He had to force his brain back into gear to think about where the beam would move and what danger he was in.


    He sat and stewed in misery for a while, deeply unhappy that it hadn''t all just been a weird dream.


    I don''t want to die.


    Any thought of death automatically made him think about his depression, and from long habit he seized on coping strategies. Half of them were irrelevant now that he wasn''t on Earth or around people, but some still applied. What is the defiant thought here? It was a question a therapist had asked him once, long ago. What is the response to, ¡°I don''t want to die here?¡±


    Nick clenched his jaw a moment.


    ¡°So don''t.¡±


    Fuck depression! Nick wasn''t as forceful with the thought as he could be, but at least he was thinking it. Fuck depression. Get up and fight.


    ¡°It doesn''t matter how shaky you feel when you get back up, so long as you do get back up. The rest is gravy.¡±


    Nick took a deep breath. ¡°Thanks, Doc,¡± he muttered. He picked up the opened bottle of fizzy water and drank most of it. His stomach rumbled, so he looked through the remaining food, and stuffed some in his mouth. He made it a meager breakfast, because it had to last him until he figured out a food source.


    He was reluctant to open the bag of chips for a couple of reasons. First, eating something salty was probably not what he needed while sweating away so much water. Second, if he opened the bag, even if he rationed it, what was left would get more and more stale. Nick clung to the hope that he could teach Petra to replicate food, and he needed fresh examples if he didn''t want to eat stale potato chips every day for the rest of his life.


    All right. Keep digging. I got to get to that hydrogen so I can feed it to Petra.


    Before he got started on that, he looked through Petra''s menus again. There was something interesting in the Charging menu¡ªthe amounts of several items was now up significantly. He had no idea what was what, but he thought he had just solved the mystery of where the rocks went when Petra at them and only upped the oxygen amount. It was because he hadn''t been looking at the amounts of things that weren''t ingredients in water.


    So Petra is stockpiling some stuff. Awesome. Nick kept looking, and found a Maps icon. He tapped on it, and there was one entry, written in gibberish. He tapped on that, and a very boring-looking map appeared. I guess I haven''t been anywhere yet, or rather Petra hasn''t.


    I wonder why it takes her so long to figure some things out, when she grabbed like everything on my phone almost instantly? Nick didn''t know the first thing about how Petra worked, so he set aside the question of why. That''s just the way it was, and Nick would work with that. He would make regular checks of the menus and see if more things were getting added in English.


    Nick adjusted his sun barriers to the extent it felt safe, then got back to work digging. He didn''t feel great, given the heat and that he had only gotten about three hours of sleep. I''ll nap some more when the Death Star is lower in the sky and isn''t quite cooking me alive.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    Nick would dig into the wall with Petra in super-sharp mode, carving out a conical piece. Then he would do it again a few more times until his hand could fit in there holding Petra. Then it got easier, slicing out a ring of stone and chopping it into blocks, then pressing Petra to the farthest point to cut out the backs of the blocks. Then a larger ring. Then a larger one. Before long he had a nice wide tunnel. Going forward was the most tedious part.


    Nick was almost burying himself alive, moving so much stone behind him. Finally, he had to take a break when it got too crowded in the original foxhole. The Death Star had moved far enough west that Nick felt safer sitting back down in the chair. He leaned back with Petra''s display in his lap.


    The solar panels were doing their job; Petra was apparently fully charged. The number had risen to 100% and 5040/5040. Why it was 5040 units, Nick had no idea. Nor did he even know what the unit was. Nick labeled it Energy, then went to the main drawing area and wrote, 10080 Energy. Double should be an easy number, right?


    Asking for power had gotten him the power menu. Asking for energy now got him what he guessed was the battery menu. He scrolled through the options, tapping on each and looking at the costs in materials. For each of them, there were several substances that he still had zero units of.


    All right, it was a good idea, but I guess I''m going to have to make do with 5040 units at a time, then.


    Nick called up the note-taking app and started writing up a to-do list:


    Power supply¡ªcheck


    Battery capacity¡ªnot enough stuff


    Display¡ªcheck


    Lights¡ªcheck


    Knife mode¡ªcheck


    Blade of Awesomeness¡ªnot enough stuff


    Water¡ªgot the oxygen, need the hydrogen


    Hydrogen¡ªdig until I reach it


    Food¡ªget Petra to copy


    Latrine¡ªneed to figure out how not to stink up the cave. Don''t want to hold it six hours every day.


    Toilet paper¡ªuse paper for the moment I guess


    Long-term Goals


    Get home


    Transportation


    Communication¡ªcan I phone home?


    Aliens¡ªcan I find any?


    Explore BigBall


    Learn more about Petra


    Is there life on BigBall besides me and my germs?


    Can I plant the apple seeds I saved?


    Nick frowned at the list. It didn''t give him much to actually do yet, just dig for the hydrogen. Nick brooded about that for a few minutes, then added under short-term goals:


    See if Petra can dig faster than I can, or help me do it faster.


    All right, how do I explain ¡°dig¡± to Petra?


    Nick thought about ¡°Cut¡± and how he managed that one. He drew a picture of a block, then a block with a hole through it, and wrote DRILL on the first block, and then DR and LL on either side of the hole in the second one. After a few rounds of that, Petra created a menu option and a picture of Petra with essentially a big drill bit instead of a blade.


    Nick tried it out immediately. Again there was the faint smell of something burning, which he had long since gotten used to, and the vibration and hum. He pushed Petra straight into the wall until she touched the surface, then pulled the device back. There was a cylindrical hole in the wall, maybe three inches across. There was no sign of the rock that had been there. Petra must have eaten it.


    Nick experimented, and found that he could work fairly quickly, creating holes in the wall one after another in a matter of a few seconds. A few minutes of this, and there were dozens of holes, several of which he had merged into a big opening that Petra in blade mode could work from. Encouraged, Nick started digging again, trying to do everything with the drill. Unfortunately, the drill abruptly turned off after a while.


    Crap. Did I break it? Nick tried to turn the drill back on, but to no avail. The knife mode still worked. Nick hunted through the menus and looked up the amounts of substances. One of them was full up, listing 720/720 units.


    Nick switched to Discharging, and selected the full-up substance. Petra began printing hexagonal rods of a shiny white metal. Nick started stacking them up, but soon found that the rods were getting covered in a white-gray coating. Reacting with the air, I guess. I wonder what element that is.


    Once the rods stopped coming out, Nick had a rough idea of how much a ¡°unit¡± was. He went back to drilling, focusing more on making a hole about ten inches across, wide enough to reach in and cut the sides. The drill turned itself off, again, and the same substance was full up, so Nick had Petra print out more of the rods.


    Man, I hope this stuff isn''t toxic. Nick went through a couple more rounds of this. The rods took up less than half the space of the stone bricks. Then a different substance jammed the drill. It turned out to be oxygen. Nick was about to hit Discharging, but froze.


    Wait, isn''t pure oxygen dangerous?


    The last thing he needed was to spray pure oxygen over flammable things in super bright sunlight. Nick decided to lay off the drill for the moment. Instead, he went back to sketching.


    Is there a way to get Petra to do the drilling for me?

 Chapter 16: The View

    Nick drew picture after picture, but nothing triggered a response from Petra. It would be so awesome if she could just dig all this out herself. There''s probably a way to do it, and I just haven''t figured it out.


    Sometimes Nick took a break and paged through the photos on his phone. He was glad he had that much from home. He''d never been one to take tons of pictures, at least compared to his friends, but his saved photos might be the only way he would ever see a green leaf again.


    He even listened to a few of his saved messages. ¡°BEEP. Hey, Nick, it''s Brian. I''m outside O''Reilly''s, man, where the fuck are you? I need moral support before Cathy gets here. Don''t let me screw this up, dude. I''m counting on you.¡±


    ¡°BEEP. Hello, Nicholas, this is Dr. Feinbaum''s office reminding you of an appointment...¡±


    ¡°BEEP. Hi, Nick, it''s Mandy. Sorry to hear you''re under the weather. Don''t worry, you''ll be invited to the next one. Take care of yourself. If you need help, medicine or something, call me or ''Ness. All right? Hang in there. Bye.¡±


    Nick carefully closed his messages folder, not wanting to risk accidentally deleting anything. Every little thing he had from Earth was irreplaceable now. It was a grim feeling.


    Finally, the Death Star set. He had survived his second day on BigBall. Nick carefully checked that it was safe, then emerged next to what was left of the Ford. He immediately trotted downhill a ways and relieved himself. I am going to need toilet paper badly. Not even leaves to use. Then again, even if there were, I wouldn''t dare let them near my junk without knowing that they wouldn''t burn them with acid or anything. Well, I''m not eating much, so maybe I''ve got another day to figure something out.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Nick was tired of inactivity. He headed uphill and pushed himself to hurry, determined to get a good look around if he could manage it. He was huffing and puffing before long, but kept at it. He had Petra with him and actually hit Discharging to release the oxygen now that he was in the open. He took a few good lungfuls that helped to energize him for a bit.


    He had to hurry because he needed to get a good vantage point before the light faded. He tried to keep an eye on the sky and land around him, and an eye on his footing as well. This mostly meant quick glimpses around as he primarily focused on where his feet were landing. Every so often he would pause and use Charging to get Petra to eat a rock, just in case there were more elements or whatever available on the surface. Finally, he got as high as he could in the time he had, turned and sat down on a rock outcropping, looking at everything.


    Hills. Almost nothing but hills as far as he could see. The only direction that didn''t have hills was southwest. It looked like a smooth patch of horizon was visible in that direction. The hills opened up into some sort of plain, maybe. It was partly ringed by hills, though, which made him think it looked more like a bay or a big lake, or even an ocean.


    Only there wasn''t any water.


    Nick stared, picturing that flat valley filled with water, and then imagining the rays of the Death Star boiling it all away. He felt a chill that had nothing to do with the breeze that was picking up.


    Was I dropped on a dying world?

 Chapter 17 Digging for Hydrogen

    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.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    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.

 Chapter 18: Air and Meds

    Nick chose to expand the area near the hydrogen-bearing rocks into a proper room. It wasn''t strictly necessary, but he felt as if it mattered. He was going to go crazy if all he had was a claustrophobic rounded tunnel to live in, even if he could go outside at night.


    He also decided to start a diary in his little text editor on his cloned phone. There was a lot to keep track of, and a couple of times, Nick had already done some digging and forgotten why he was digging in a particular direction.


    Wednesday, October third, 202X


    Day 3 on Planet BigBall


    So a funny thing happened to me on Monday...


    Nick wrote for a bit, venting a little and organizing a little. And partly, writing down important stuff that he was sure to forget if he was here for a long time. Such as, the rest of my life, he thought grimly.


    He took one of his four doses of medication. It wouldn''t do him any good to get horribly depressed and unmotivated while he was still trying to get established. He was already feeling the effects of missing a day, and it sucked.


    He went outside and dug a shallow latrine about thirty yards away from his tunnel. After the unpleasant process of using it was complete, Nick grimaced. ¡°I''m really sorry about this, Petra,¡± he muttered, and used Petra''s ability to make materials vanish.


    While he was at it, he had Petra absorb the groceries that had gone bad in the heat, including the eggs and sour milk. He continued turning the car into a pile of hexagonal metal rods and such. When the Death Star was about to rise, he took the purified materials and retreated into his tunnel.


    He had a bad scare later that day¡ªnight¡ªwhatever, when he got a headache and started feeling tired and having trouble breathing. He had just enough presence of mind to get Petra to discharge pure oxygen in his face, and then used the adrenaline rush to get out of the deathtrap. He stayed on the edge of the shadows cast by the Death Star and thought about ventilation.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    Hours of drawing later, he thought he had explained to Petra what he needed, and she offered a device that he had enough materials to make. It took a while to print, but eventually the new alien gadget was finished. Nick optimistically labeled it Air Purifier #1 in the network and turned it on. Nothing appeared to happen, though. How will I know if it works? I don''t have any canaries with me.


    He went back to drawing, trying to get Petra to make other things like remote sensors, tunneling robots, and the like. Or at least to get the idea that they were needed. The alien device offered up a new menu with gibberish labels, and Nick couldn''t afford the materials for any of them yet. Eventually he would just have to build them and find out what they did.


    He took a few deep breaths of clean air, then went down the tunnel into his room. He had three of Petra''s little lights mounted on the walls now, and a fourth that he carried like a flashlight. When he inspected the air purifier, he found a small hexagonal rod of a gray-black material that looked and felt a little greasy. Is that lead? Pencil lead?


    Nick tried to remember. He had a fuzzy memory that regular lead and pencil lead weren''t the same thing. That made sense, because people wanted to keep regular lead away from kids, not put it in pencils that kids sometimes chewed on.


    At any rate, the air felt okay to breathe and he didn''t get a headache even after an hour in the room. He guessed that the air purifier was doing its job. Since it ate carbon dioxide and made oxygen, the greasy stuff should be carbon. Nick went through the Charging menu and found and labeled carbon.


    When he looked at the food ingredients lists again, he found that four substances were needed a lot more than anything else: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and one other. Whatever it was, he had a decent amount now from the same rocks that he was mining for hydrogen. Apparently he had lucked out; the eggs had included something he needed a only tiny bit of for lots of things.


    Then came the most important moment to Nick. He told Petra to Copy, and fed her one of his three remaining antidepressant pills. The alien device consumed it, and displayed the ingredients.


    There were six ingredients. He was missing one. Nick swore at length.


    He had Petra Save the design of the pill. Then he stared at the remaining food. He had two snack bars left, two cans of soup, four cans of tuna, a bag of potato chips, one bottle of fizzy water, and a few more items. Which one will have what I need? Will any of them? Will I destroy my entire food supply and not even get my meds?


    It took Nick an embarrassingly long time to remember to Search for the missing ingredient. It was in all of the food, it turned out. Nervously, Nick sacrificed a can of tuna, feeding it entirely to Petra, and prayed it would be enough.


    It was. Petra started printing pills.

 Chapter 19: Copper

    Nick kept digging.


    The days and nights on BigBall started to blur together pretty quickly. He was either chilled or sweating all the time. He needed a better air purifier because his own stink was getting bad, and he didn''t have enough water for a good bath.


    Nick knew that his survival depended on getting enough resources from the rocks. He dug until he was too tired to carry rocks out of the tunnel, then rested, either sleeping or poking at Petra''s interface. He started playing over and over the few video clips he had saved on his phone for a little contact with the memory of humanity.


    Nick solved the can opener problem by asking Petra to build something purely out of steel, and then feeding her a can of tuna. Petra ate the top lid and then Nick aborted the command. He used the steel to make a spork. That left him two more cans. He was definitely going to go hungry for a while.


    Watching the power levels go up and down, Nick decided to make two more solar panels since he had the materials. Every so often he checked the ingredients list to see whether he could expand Petra''s battery capacity.


    He cut up the rest of the car, turning it all into raw materials and bringing them inside. Then he actually had to spend some time moving the waste rock farther away from the tunnel entrance. That at least was easy enough; if he gave more than a gentle toss it would roll or slide quite a ways downhill.


    It was still exercise. Nick wondered if this was what prison felt like¡ªmoving rocks all day in heat and cold. I guess it would be solitary confinement, in my case. But hey, I don''t have a fence. I can go wherever, so long as I dig in by sunrise.


    Nick figured that he might eventually want to make boltholes some distance away, in case he got trapped outside at sunrise. But first, he wanted to make his tunnel into a home. That required resources. Everything always came down to resources.


    Not wanting to get trapped in a pit of his own making, Nick was careful to carve good smooth steps as he went, and counted his progress by them. He managed several steps per day. The work was faster with practice, but slower because he had a lot farther to carry the waste rock.


    Petra kept time for him, so that he didn''t completely lose track. He took his meds religiously, knowing what a vast difference they made. He rationed his food, and got used to feeling hungry all the time.


    He kept writing log entries. They were basically a diary, but log sounded cooler. He kept notes on what he had figured out and what Petra could do.


    Finally, after what felt like forever, Nick hit the copper deposit.


    He scooped out enough rock so that Petra printed out several copper rods of excess, then sat down to see what he could make. He''d also gotten a couple of other things out of the same deposit, including one that printed out a crazy bright yellow. Most metals looked the same to him, though. He had no idea what they were called back on Earth.


    Now, though, he had options.


    First up was a remote sensor to Search for minerals. Nick printed a couple of them, and placed them far apart inside the tunnel. I guess I could call this a mine. I''m living in a mine, being a miner. I could name this place Nick''s Mine. Or I could just say it''s Mine. Nick played around with the display for a while, making sure that the sensors worked, and made a note to take them outside and walk around prospecting with them after the Death Star set.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Next he printed out a device that he wasn''t quite sure of what it did. He hoped it was some kind of digging tool, so he named it Digger #1. It was small, barely bigger than Petra. He set it down on top of the copper deposit and used the display pad to turn it on.


    Nick cracked up laughing at what he saw.


    Petra still wasn''t great at English, not knowing what words were referring to. But she had adopted the interface from one of his little time-waster games. He could steer the digger around just like a little game avatar. Well, that''s one way to get the point across!


    Nick happily drove the little thing around, and tried out the special moves buttons. The first one called up the substance menu, and Nick chose copper. A little map popped up with a projected path, and the gadget glided over and parked on top of the copper deposit. The next special caused the digger to start eating its way into the rock for a bit, then it stopped. The third special caused it to print out a copper rod. The fourth needed a location specified, and once Nick chose it, the digger trundled back up out of the hole it had dug and parked itself.


    There was a suggestion for a combo of moves, and Nick labeled it Fetch. When he triggered it, the digger rolled over to the copper, dug in, came back, and printed out a copper rod along with a different material that looked like gold at first. When he picked it up, though, it was heavy like metal, but not super heavy like gold was supposed to be. I''ll figure it out later, he decided.


    Nick tried to send the digger after a mineral deposit that was a few feet in past where he had cleared. The little digger tried, but retreated as soon as it got full of rock.


    Another device Nick wanted to build was one he called Mason. Its job was to cut stone blocks out of the walls. When he printed it out, he set it to work lengthening the chamber he was in. Unfortunately it still needed him to move all the stone blocks that it cut out, but doing all the cutting for him was a huge win.


    Mason had several modes. It did a terrific job of leveling the floor. He gave it instructions by drawing, Petra sharpened up his artwork, and Mason went to town.


    The only problem was that these devices were a huge power drain. Nick printed out a couple more solar panels, and then looked at the battery prospects again. It turned out that he had enough of some rare things to build exactly one storage battery. When Nick went to print it out, Petra warned him that there wasn''t enough energy available to print it.


    So, Nick waited until the following local day, and waited until Petra was full of energy, with all six solar panels soaking up more power that was presumably just going to waste. He started the printing process, and it ended up taking over four hours, only finishing after night fell and nearly half of Petra''s charge had been drained away.


    As soon as it was in the network and Nick turned it on, he checked Petra''s energy level. Instead of 2782/5040, it now read 2782/45360. Nick pumped his fist in the air. ¡°Yeah! That''s what I''m talking about! Whoo-hoo! Yeah!¡± His own voice already sounded a little unfamiliar, and echoed a bit painfully off the rock walls.


    Buoyed by his successes, Nick took another look at the problems with food printing. He was almost able to print out most of the foods, but there was always a tiny bit of something or other missing. That meant that he had to get even better at finding resources in the rocks of Bare Hill.


    The next device took a while of arguing with Petra. He actually printed two devices that he couldn''t figure out what they did, but on the third try, he got a machine that he named Tunnel Rat. Tunnel Rat was the big prize.


    It took a while to chain the commands together, but eventually, Tunnel Rat started working. It ate away at a wall, then climbed out of the hole it was making. It then sort of floated up over the steps¡ªNick had no idea how¡ªand kept going until it was outside, where it dropped the load of stone shaped into a brick. Best of all, Nick could set it on Repeat.


    He had to turn it off and wait, though, because Petra was running out of energy. Nick resolved to use as little energy as possible until the battery was fully charged up. Then he would see what he could afford to run.


    But Petra was now all set to dig out the mine herself, following whatever blueprints Nick decided to draw up. He checked his air, drank water, used the latrine, and then lay back on the car seat as well as he could. Between exhaustion, the heat, and the gnawing hunger, Nick decided to sleep as long as he could.


    Whatever Earth''s Sun and the Death Star were doing, it had been a good day.

 Chapter 20: Tuna

    Nick was hungry.


    He was always hungry these days. He still hadn''t managed to get Petra to print any food. He decided to search Bare Hill more efficiently. He drew the designs while waiting for charge, and as soon as Petra was at peak, he sent Tunnel Rat out to dig little tunnels only a few inches across.


    It took an annoyingly long time to figure out how to tell Petra what he wanted next. He called it Taxi, and all it did was carry one of Petra''s sensors around. He made sure it fit inside the little tunnels, then sent it off to search the whole hill. It started out working great...then both Taxi and the sensor disappeared. The signal was lost.


    They''ve got a maximum range, Nick realized. Tunnel Rat was okay because it had instructions to return back the way it came. I had Taxi on manual and now it''s stuck somewhere. Nick shook his head, annoyed with himself.


    Dumbass.


    Nick built another Taxi and another sensor, and tried to be more careful with the instructions this time. He called up Maps and got Petra to color in the resources she was finding. The picture rapidly got very messy. Then Petra spouted some alphabet soup followed by


    Confirm (Y/N)?


    Nick stared at it. She hasn''t steered me wrong yet. He pressed Y and a familiar image came up. It was the Display menu. Instead of the rectangle that had produced the tablet Nick used all the time, a sort of star pattern of lines was selected.


    Nick looked at the ingredients list, which took a while because he had to remember that he had those rods printed out, so he had more stuff than Petra was counting. Eventually, he concluded that he could afford it¡ªbarely. There were three different rare materials that the new display consumed basically all of. Nick winced, but pressed Y again at the final prompt.


    This printout took over an hour, and paused half a dozen times while Nick found the necessary rods to feed in. It also consumed half a day''s worth of energy, for some reason. In the end, what came out was a square mirror with slightly rounded corners. Nick picked it up and inspected it; it was black on the other side, which he guessed was the bottom. He set it down on a stack of bricks, then used Petra''s tablet to turn it on.


    The air above the mirror began to glow. Then, what looked like a hologram formed. Nick squinted at the colored blobs before he realized what he was seeing: a three-dimensional map of the contents of Bare Hill, at least as far as he had managed to send Taxi exploring. Materials were color coded. It was actually really cool to look at.


    With that in hand, Nick did another search. He looked for the materials needed in trace amounts stopping him from replicating a can of tuna and getting some much needed protein. One of the missing materials was not far away, and he set a Digger to get some.


    After that, there was still one more to find. Nick set Tunnel Rat to digging out another room heading north, deeper into the hillside. The power drain was bad enough that Nick turned on Petra''s knife and did some of the work by hand as well. He almost lost a finger or two in a moment of clumsiness, then turned off the knife and put Petra down.


    It''s getting hard to think straight. Nick had no idea how much sleep he had been getting, only that it wasn''t nearly enough, and hunger was contributing to his exhaustion. He climbed back up the stairs to his first room, and then the tunnel to the outside. He stayed near the edge of the shadows cast by the Death Star and focused on just breathing fresh air for a bit.


    I really need food. I mean, even if I get Petra copying what I''ve got, I''m not exactly going to have a great diet. But if I don''t eat something soon, I''m going to kill myself making a mistake. Nick debated with himself, then opened his next-to-last snack bar. He could barely pace himself. He didn''t want to leave any food exposed to the air long, so he was going to eat it all, but he had meant for it to last more than a minute.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    At least I have water, he consoled himself.


    Eventually, he went back down inside. I need to name the rooms, now that I have more than one. Hm, I''m building a secret base that can make almost anything. The Mine is a decent name, I guess. Maybe I should name the levels, or number them at least. Only, I would have to increase the numbers going down instead of up. Like diving a dungeon in a game.


    Nick thought about that. This kind of is like a game, or it could be. No monsters to fight, thank God. But it''s like I found a what-do-you-call-it, a dungeon core. Like a seed that sprouts a dungeon, and this whole situation is a lot like one of those city-building games. ''Build the Dungeon'': an Actual Reality Game brought to you by Fates with a twisted sense of humor.


    So the tunnel and the first room would be the first level of the dungeon. The room over the copper deposit would be on the second level, along with the new room Tunnel Rat''s working on when it has power. Speaking of which, I should see how many solar panels I can make now.


    Nick sat down and fought with Petra some more, trying to get ideas across. He could use Copy to get an ingredient list for an object. He wanted to know what was in the air. He tried a bunch of things, but what finally worked was running Search for every substance Petra had in the list, and zooming in on a patch of air. The box he drew lit up with oxygen, and a couple of others, including an ingredient in food. What is that...nitrogen? Nick wasn''t sure at all.


    He discovered that he could add substances to the Search menu, assuming he could describe them in a way Petra could actually identify and understand. He put in water as a new ingredient, and then Searched for it. The air box lit up, so there was water vapor in the air.


    Right, there had to be, otherwise I would be dry as a mummy by now. If anything, the air on Planet BigBall felt a bit humid. A grim thought crept in. That would make sense if all the oceans on BigBall recently boiled away into the air...


    Nick put it out of his mind. He struggled to find a way to tell Petra to take the stink out of the air. He also thought that he needed to create a proper bathroom, but that would take ages. Running water was a bit much for a project when he was still working on not starving to death.


    For hours, Nick went through the list of substances, doing Search after Search, filling in more and more of the 3D map of the interior of Bare Hill. Even with the map, it was getting hard to keep track of where the scanners were, the Tunnel Rats, and how long it had been since he last did a Search for a particular substance. He kept notes, but it was still getting really tedious.


    Eventually, he got tired enough that he slept for something like six hours straight. He woke up and did another Search for the missing ingredient in tuna that Petra couldn''t Copy yet. This time, he got a hit.


    ¡°Hallelujiah,¡± Nick breathed, his voice feeling rough. He got a drink of water. I''m getting lost in my own head a lot these days. I''m not even talking to myself out loud any more.


    The deposit was a long distance away, at the limit of Tunnel Rat''s automated motions. Nick had it just carve out and fetch samples so he could see it for himself. What he got was a reddish rock that looked like it had tiny red crystals in it. Cool. Red Kryptonite. He fed it to Petra.


    One sample gave more than enough of the missing ingredient. Nick sighed with relief. Now I can eat tuna until I''m sick of it. Out of curiosity, he printed out a sample of the mysterious secret ingredient.


    A bit of shiny, silvery metal dripped out of Petra''s printer.


    ¡°Mercury.¡± Nick stared at it, and then had Petra reabsorb it. Even he knew mercury was bad for you. He squeezed his eyes shut a moment, then couldn''t hold back a yell.


    ¡°God DAMN it! I''ve been going hungry all this time because Petra couldn''t find enough fucking MERCURY to put in my TUNA to match what the supermarket sells? Son of a BITCH! AAAGH!¡±


    Nick vented for a while, then took a deep breath. He glowered at the alien device. ¡°All right, Petra, you and I are going to get this straight once and for all. I want tuna, except for the fucking mercury.¡±


    The problem was, Nick couldn''t figure out how to say that in pictures. Petra wouldn''t let him edit ingredients lists for something to be copied. She''s like a photocopier. She doesn''t know how to edit or Photoshop things.


    He went ahead and had Petra create several cans of supermarket quality tuna, complete with little bits of mercury, while he continued to struggle with the problem. He stuffed himself with tuna, then wished mightily for toothpaste and dental floss. But at least his stomach shut up for a little while.


    I''m gonna have the same kind of issue with snack bars. There''s way too many ingredients in those things, there''s always going to be something missing, and I don''t know which things it will be safe to leave out. But I know there shouldn''t be any mercury in food.


    Fuck, I wish I knew chemistry.

 Chapter 21: Sorting

    Nick started teaching Petra what little he did know. Let''s see...H2O is water. He gave Petra abbreviations H for hydrogen, O for oxygen, C for carbon, N for nitrogen¡ªand he really hoped he had guessed that one right¡ªand Merc for mercury. He knew mercury had some weird-ass abbreviation like Hg or something but he wasn''t sure he remembered what it was, so he went with Merc. It wasn''t like there was anyone from Earth around to complain about it. Al for aluminum, Cop for copper, and for some reason ''Fe'' felt like the symbol for iron, but he wrote I for it instead.


    Feeling uneasy about it, Nick drew H¡ªO¡ªH, then H2O, then labeled it as water. Next he wrote CO2 and labeled it as carbon dioxide. Let''s see whether Petra can figure out chemistry better than I can.


    Petra could.


    Both displays got flooded with chemical formulas. Most of the elements got assigned symbols starting with Q or X. Apparently Petra had figured out that English didn''t start a whole lot of words with those. Petra drew a bunch of versions of the same thing, and asked Nick to pick the version he liked best. He went with the holograms.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    It turned out that you could draw in the air using the holographic display, but Nick had a bear of a time trying to figure out the controls. He stuck with using the tablet for input unless something was genuinely hard to sketch flat. The hardest part was figuring out what to draw.


    After what felt like forever, he got Petra to show him chemical ingredients instead of elements. He presented her with his last snack bar and got the alien device to save the recipe without actually having to sacrifice the snack bar. The result was a much longer list.


    Nick had no idea what any of these things were, but he figured that they should all be safe to eat. Most of them just needed carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, though there were plenty of exceptions.


    Nick crossed his fingers and started printing out samples of each.


    A lot of them tasted disgusting. Nick was baffled as to why. The snack bars weren''t revolting to his taste. He played around with the organization scheme Petra was using. She was giving the list of ingredients in increasing order of number of atoms at first. Nick managed to switch it to sorting by percentage of the object being copied. The disgusting stuff must have only tiny amounts, he guessed.


    His guess was right. He couldn''t just trust the same amounts of all the different chemicals to taste good. Everything that tasted vile was only present in trace amounts.


    ¡°All right,¡± he said aloud, for the practice. ¡°The kitchen is open. Now I gotta learn how to cook.¡±

 Chapter 22: Settling In

    Nick scratched at his bushy beard and picked another molecule to taste. He cleared his throat a few times, a new habit ever since he had nearly killed himself printing out chlorine gas by mistake. The things I do to get table salt.


    He drew this molecule on Petra''s pad, and as often happened, Petra objected. Well, not really, but she made holograms of sixteen different versions (Nick counted) and asked which one he wanted printed out. He decided to try all sixteen.


    It turned out, some of them tasted sweet. Not quite sugar, he didn''t think, but pretty close. It took him a long while to figure out that some versions made him sick to his stomach and others didn''t. Once he found a version his body liked, Nick heaved an enormous sigh of relief.


    He started eating that specific version regularly and just labeled it as sugar. He learned that he could actually make and eat a lot of it without dying, and best of all, it seemed to genuinely ease his hunger pangs.


    My teeth are totally going to rot away, but that is a problem for future Nick¡ªa non-starving Nick.


    Nick was pretty sure he would have come down with, like, rickets or scurvy or something already, if it weren''t for the package of multivitamins. Petra still couldn''t make a complete vitamin pill from scratch, but she could make most of one, and Nick was careful to take one every day along with his medication.


    After a lot of tuna and sugar for breakfast one ¡°day¡±, Nick went on a tour of his little ¡°dungeon.¡±


    Level 1 had the tunnel and first room, which was now the washroom. That was a fancy name for a room with stone jars of water and an iron tub, along with all the scraps of cloth Nick had. He still hadn''t figured out soap, and after several painful failures wasn''t sure he was going to bother trying any more. He just scrubbed at himself as well as he could, over and over.


    Stairs led down to Level 2, which now had four rooms. The room with copper was the central chamber at the base of the stairs. The second room towards the east was his ¡°bedroom¡± and held his few possessions from Earth. The third room to the west was his kitchen and larder, where he kept supplies of foods Petra had printed out, and ingredient stockpiles.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    The fourth room, to the north, opened into a lot of small tunnels, and held all the Diggers, Masons, Sensors, Taxis and Tunnel Rats when he wasn''t using them. This room also had the next flight of stairs down.


    Level 3 had four small rooms so far, connected by tunnels. Each one went towards a deposit of something or other. He was considering using the northernmost room as the starting point for the next flight of stairs down to what would become Level 4.


    All the rooms had light fixtures that could be aimed and turned on and off individually. Petra could also work them remotely, labeling them as Flashlight 1 through Flashlight 47 in her network.


    Not bad for a month and a half, Nick cheered himself.


    He went back to his bedroom. He had printed out more flat displays, and had them mounted on the walls in there. Two of them showed different photos from his cloned phone. Another had the main list of Petra''s network.


    The last one showed the signal from a remote camera he had set up near where the portal had opened when Nick had landed on this world. It was a boring view, but Nick held out hope that one day it wouldn''t be.


    He had finally cracked the air-purification problem. He had taken Petra outside and analyzed a block of air to death, so that he knew what the atmosphere of BigBall was. It turned out to be 28% oxygen, 65% nitrogen, 2% water vapor, and 5% other things he hadn''t been able to identify. He hoped they weren''t harmful.


    At any rate, his new home did not stink like he did, and it wasn''t dusty. Nick called that problem solved. He wondered what to work on next.


    He had a Wish List:


    Make a radio or communicator. Try to contact aliens for a rescue. Try to contact Earth.


    Make some kind of transport, preferably a flyer.


    Explore more of BigBall.


    Try to find Earth.


    Make a spaceship.


    Go home.


    None of those were practical in the short term or even the medium term, and maybe not ever. It wasn''t a good list to motivate him to start projects.


    The more reasonable items he called the To Do List:


    keep recording the log


    teach Petra more English


    learn science from Petra


    learn more about what Petra can do


    keep exploring


    get more resources


    figure out more foods


    figure out what kind of dirt a plant needs to grow


    try to plant the apple seeds


    figure out soap and shampoo and toothpaste (really hard)


    Nick looked over the lists again. He got brain fatigue pretty easily these days, but Petra was the only thing around that interacted with him in any way, so every new word or concept was a victory.


    I should write in my log, he thought. Then he sighed. After I nap. He lay down, feeling vaguely dissatisfied, but not sure what to do about it. Sleep helps, he told himself. I''ll feel better after I nap.

 Chapter 23: Nicks Log

    Nick''s Log, Star Date 92 aka May 17, 202X


    Man, I miss home.


    I miss the stupid things. That annoying dog that always barks at 5 am? I''d love to hear that again. That godawful pop hit from the Steaming Birds? I''d listen. The disgusting piss they call beer at Morrie''s? I''d drink it and be grateful. A burger. I''d kill for a goddamn burger. I should have tried to cook the hamburger meat in sunlight my first day here. Spices. Hell, pepper! I miss so many things.


    I know I might go crazy. They say you go crazy if you''re alone for too long. Well, I''ll try to steer my crazy. Something not totally harmful or obnoxious, so even if I make it home, I don''t get locked up or whatever. Who am I kidding? The government will probably lock me up and dissect me if I ever get home.


    I dunno. The whole day-night thing messes me up. I try to think of it as two days on Planet BigBall is one day on Earth, but it''s not that simple and my sleep goes in and out of synch with stuff.


    What am I even trying to do here? Survive, obviously. But for what? I''m never gonna make it home. I''m going to die out here.


    Die. Bzzt. Bad depression. Bad. No biscuit.


    I don''t know I''m going to die out here. I always knew for sure that I''d die on Earth. That was wrong. Maybe I won''t die here either. Maybe I''ll make it off Planet BigBall and go adventuring across the galaxy with a talking rabbit that loves explosives and a bird man who''s scared of house cats. Who knows? Anything is possible.


    Maybe tomorrow I''ll rediscover soy sauce or something. Plus there''s always the chance that I''ll find whatever''s missing from the can of chicken noodle soup. It better not be something like mercury again.


    I need to redesign that goddamn can opener. I cut myself again earlier getting at some tuna. It''s a miracle that I haven''t gotten horribly sick from local germs or whatever.


    Oh, crap. Maybe those aliens on Market Street accidentally gave us a plague. Maybe Earth is covered in blood-sucking zombies by now. Or that would be vampires. Whatever.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    It''s just so fucking random. Why would you open a bunch of space portals going a bunch of places and be so disorganized about it? You''d think aliens who did that too much would kill themselves off with a super plague or whatever.


    And why the hell were the green aliens fighting, anyway? If they have things like Petra in their pockets and can spare one for a stranger, aren''t they, like, totally rich? Why would someone conquer them? Just give the attackers a Petra. Maybe aliens are stupid just like humans, fighting over nothing.


    I gotta salute the alien babe who gave me Petra, though. I''d have been dead in a day without her. Green alien girl, you did me a solid.


    Who knows? If I keep making stuff and opening up new menus, maybe I can get all kinds of things.


    I''ve started talking to Petra a little.


    I know, I know, crazy town. But I''m writing English lessons for Petra. Real Hop on Pop type stuff. I draw pictures and put words, and just make lots of very simple sentences. I''m not sure but I think it might be helping. Anything to reduce the alphabet soup in the menus.


    Oh yeah, I finally got Petra to print a charger that works for my phone. Good think Petra can, like, totally scan things or whatever. She''s got to be some kind of engineer, to be able to rig up a charger for an alien piece of technology. I don''t actually need my phone, but it''s familiar, and I''ve got so little from Earth I want to cling to every bit I can. An expired mint is a treasure, just for the link to home.


    Yeah, I''m going a little crazy. It''s been over a month since I talked to a human being. I''m not a crybaby by any stretch but it''s...getting a little old. I''m gonna forget how to talk, if I don''t talk to Petra sometimes. Yeah, that''s it¡ªI''m just practicing speaking. Not crazy at all.


    Maybe I''ll do another echo phone call. I don''t particularly love my own voice, but it beats silence. Hey I wonder what would happen if I got Petra to print more cell phones. Could she figure out how to give them different numbers?


    Man, this log is probably going to be boring as hell to read later, but whatever. I keep lists and stuff too. It''s not all useless.


    The hydrogen is starting to run out. I''m being careful, but some of the water just evaporates, so it doesn''t all recycle. Oh hey, maybe I could get Petra to suck water vapor of the the air, like a dehumidifier. Better put it outside, though. I don''t want to get super dry inside. Cracked skin is the last thing I need on top of everything else.


    Anyway, realistically I need to search farther and find another hydrogen deposit. I wonder how far down I can go in the hill? Stairs suck, but I think I''m still a long way from making rope or an elevator.


    I should work on the flying car again. Petra obviously can make things float around. I ought to at least get a hover car. Going for a drive might do me some good. And hey, a flying car might be the first step on the way to a spaceship.


    Who knows?

 Chapter 24: Power Cylinder

    On Day 103, Nick went back to the power menu, trying to see if there was something better than solar panels available now that he had more options. When he chose the next item on the menu, Petra printed out a solid cylinder that was made out of some weird material that looked like flexible stone. It only had one marking on it, a plus sign on one end. It kind of looked like a giant AA battery, but it wasn''t in the battery menu. Nick turned it on, and Petra showed that it was making zero units of energy. Trying to find some kind of status or properties for it, he got two numbers that matched. That was it.


    He could make different sizes and proportions, but they all came out a blank cylinder with a plus on the end. The biggest one he made was about an inch thick and about eight feet long. He couldn''t figure out what it did, though. He left it outside during the day, and it still made no power. He shook his head, staring at it that night. ¡°This thing is useless, Petra. Why is it in the power menu?¡±


    A few days later, he was fiddling with a bunch of different experiments and gadgets outside in the dawn light, getting some fresh air and trying to figure out what they did. Among other things, he stared at a little moving contraption that seemed to be one of those active toys like swinging marbles that high-powered executives kept on their desk to look impressive. While he was staring at the gadget, he was startled by his alarm going off, warning him of sunrise. He blinked. Man, I lost track of time.


    He looked at the horizon, and saw with alarm that sunrise was even closer than his clock indicated. What the hell? The Death Star is rising earlier than it''s supposed to! For a second Nick was baffled, but then remembered that it happened on Earth too, and why. I guess BigBall has seasons? Hell of a way to find out!


    He hurried to bring everything inside, and left the ¡°power cylinder¡± in the stairwell in his haste, caught on one step and sticking up partway up out of his tunnel. Nick forgot about it while putting other things away in his workroom he had dug out on Level 2. He wasn''t the most organized of people, but every once in a while he cleaned up so that he could find things again.


    It was a while before he noticed that Petra was gaining energy faster than usual. Huh. Is the Death Star getting brighter? Nick felt a chill despite the warm air. That...could be problematic.


    When he went to the network details, though, he found that the solar panels were giving the same amount as always, but the power cylinder was now generating power as well. Calling up the specs, he found that the two numbers were now different, there was a small percentage listed, and a power rating. The rod was making about as much as two solar panels. However, the output was dropping even as he watched.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    What the hell? Nick walked up to the rod and stared at it, half in the sun and half in the shade. What is it doing? If it''s making power, why doesn''t it make more when the rod is lying out on the surface?


    Nick stared at it for a long while, but just drew a blank. It was frustrating. He was sure he was missing something.


    He set it aside for the moment. He had a dozen gadgets like that now¡ªthings he had printed out but still had no idea what they did. Every so often he would look at the cylinder, baffled.


    Eventually, he noticed that when the two numbers matched, no power was generated, and both numbers were higher in the daytime, lower at night. Nick frowned. It can''t be a thermometer, can it? Is that showing the temperature?


    Nick played with the interface some, trying a new trick. He asked Petra to print a small amount of water, but copied the high number from the power cylinder. The water came out hot. When he put in the other number, it was like usual. Then Nick deliberately set it to a smaller number and tried again. This time, Petra made ice.


    Nick cheered and labeled the number Temperature. Then he picked up the ice cube. That was a mistake.


    ¡°OW! Motherfucker! Leggo! OW!¡± The ice cube was so cold, it had stuck fast to his fingers, which were getting numb almost instantly. Working left-handed, Nick put a high number in¡ªand stopped just before he might have killed himself with superheated steam.


    Warily, he set the number to the first high value he had tried, and got hot water, which he used to somewhat violently remove the ice cube from his fingers. ¡°Ow. Motherfucking ow.¡± They still stung badly, and the pain didn''t go away after a few minutes. ¡°Fucking hell! How cold was that thing? Petra, what the fucking hell kind of temperature scale are you using?¡±


    Still distracted by pain, it took Nick a while, carefully making only a tiny amount at a time, to figure out that any number below 1005 or so made ice, while any number above 1373 made steam. On the plus side, this meant that Nick could set up a hot shower if he wanted, or even a spa if he wanted to put in the work.


    As a result of his mishap, Nick got remote thermometers, hot and cold water, and after a bit of work, both heating and air conditioning in his home. His fingers kept hurting for days, and Nick tried to take the lesson to heart. He had to keep trying things, and sometimes that would be dangerous, but he shouldn''t ever be sloppy when telling Petra to try something new.


    It would only take one bad mistake to kill him. And even if he were only injured or crippled, there was no one to come help him if he needed it. He could not afford to have accidents like this.

 Chapter 25: Bolthole

    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¡ªthat 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.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    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.

 Chapter 26: Soup

    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.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    He even asked Petra if she could replicate herself, and the answer was yes¡ªbut 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¡ªone 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.

 Chapter 27: An Expensive Build

    Nick ended up making several trips back and forth between home and the Bolthole. It was getting harder to find more of the new element without getting into the water. Once he had enough for the time being, he settled in back home and checked that he had sufficient resources to make the expensive mystery booster for Petra.


    ¡°All right, let''s do this.¡± Nick started the build.


    Petra complained about lack of resources, and Nick started feeding them in. He still wondered where Petra held all the stuff during construction, before the product started coming out. He realized that he probably would never know.


    After feeding in over a dozen rods of different elements, though, Nick was starting to wonder how long this was going to take. He had taught Petra the meaning of ¡°time to completion¡± and took a look.


    104 hours, 17 minutes, 23 seconds


    ¡°The hell? That''s like...¡± Nick squinted as he tried to do math. ¡°Four days?¡± He knew from experience that Petra would just pause a print if she didn''t have enough materials, so it wasn''t as if Nick had to stay awake that long, but every time he slept, he''d be delaying completion. So it would be more like six days.


    It actually took eight days.


    Nick found that he couldn''t do much without Petra. He couldn''t carve stone, he couldn''t even give new instructions to the guys. He just had to sit around and wait, and feed in a large fraction of his total supply of several resources. At least he had his phone, so he could look at his pictures, play his messages, and play a couple of games. He was getting really good at them.


    ¡°This had better be worth it,¡± he muttered probably a hundred times during that week.


    Finally, the progress reached 100% . The result of all that time and resources turned out to be a very small brick, not too different from Petra, only made with right angles. It was coated in that stuff that felt like flexible stone.


    Intrigued, Nick found it on Petra''s network using her control tablet. It still had that gibberish label. He switched it on... and nothing happened.


    ¡°Huh.¡± He stared at the object, then at the display. A number showed up next to the name: 0%. Ugh, I bet it''s hungry for something. It wasn''t enough that it consumed a huge fraction of my resources, now it is going to demand even more for me to use it? I hope this thing is worth it.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    The new device didn''t have input ports or a printer head, at least not that looked like Petra''s. It didn''t have decorations or indicators on it either. There were no clues as to what it might be for. Nick stared at it for a while, then gave up for the moment. He had Petra back finally, so he gave new instructions to the guys for expansion, then went back to trying to figure out food chemicals.


    The next day, Nick checked on the new device, and found that it read Charging: 1%. He had mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, it wasn''t a dud, and it was actually doing something. On the other hand, if that was energy charge, the new device would be drawing a massive amount of power and would take months just to charge up.


    Maybe I should make more solar panels. Nick had determined that he didn''t want to use power cylinders to provide energy because they dumped heat out the cold side, and that situation was already bad enough that Nick was gladly paying energy to make it go the other way. The other three energy generating systems still seemed to be either too big and expensive, or required more elements or whatever resources than Nick had.


    A small job Nick had been procrastinating was making doors. He had improvised a crude one for the tunnel exit, but he felt he needed a proper door if he was going to try growing apple trees. He was pretty sure that the ¡°dirt¡± he used was going to stink horribly, and wanted to keep the smell away from the rest of the place. He''d made air purifiers, but there were limits to what they could do.


    He occupied himself with seeing how thin he could make a metal door and still have it be rigid. Unfortunately, he pushed it too far and his aluminum door became aluminum foil. Nick fed it back into Petra and tried again.


    He was still stuck on what to use for a seal around the edges. Petra could replicate the cotton of his T-shirt, but it took a while and he was pretty sure that the cost was higher than it needed to be because of some extraneous chemical or other, like the mercury. Cotton still would probably be his best bet.


    He wasn''t in any hurry to start, because he figured he would only get a limited number of tries. Best to have everything as ready as he could possibly make it. He hadn''t figured out how to get Petra to grind up rocks into sand for him. He figured that would be the first step towards proper dirt.


    The next day, Nick checked on the mystery device. It now read Charging: 23%. Encouraged, he kept an eye on it over the next couple of days. When it reached 98%, he settled down with a bowl of tomato soup and a game on his phone to wait out the rest. True to the spirit of Murphy, though, the percentage didn''t change before he got tired of waiting and went to bed.


    In the morning, the menu listing read Charging: 99%. Nick went on an inspection of the work the guys had done while he slept. Happy that he hadn''t screwed up the instructions, Nick got himself a sugar breakfast, checked that his phone was recharged, and went back to his game for a while.


    100%.


    Nick saw the display just as it ticked over. Nothing happened at first. He waited, then took a deep breath, about to curse the thing, when the display went blank. Completely blank.


    Oh, shit.


    Quickly Nick picked up Petra herself and looked at the tiny display; it was also blank. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. Please, God, no. Don''t let Petra be bricked. Please.


    Then the display lit up, showing in great big letters:


    INITIALIZING

 Chapter 28: Status

    Nick held his breath. He realized that that was a bad idea when nothing happened for a minute. Is this going to be another percentage, and another week of waiting? Or¡ª?


    Initialized.


    Setting English Language: 7%


    File not found.


    Setting User: Nick


    File not found.


    Select Name: Petruh


    Confirm (Y/N)?


    Nick stared, then tapped the name. The keyboard came up and he corrected it. Petra. Then he pressed Y. He shook his head. How does Petra know her name? He wondered.


    Generating Profile


    File not found.


    Nick frowned. Petra appeared to be having difficulties. Still, this was massive progress.


    Game progress saved as Nick1.


    Actions:


    New Game


    Resume Saved Game


    Play Tutorial


    Settings


    Quit Game


    Exit


    Nick blinked twice. A tutorial. I''ll be goddamned. Petra has a fucking tutorial! YES!


    Very, very carefully, Nick selected Play Tutorial. The displays went blank. Nick pressed his palms together and bowed his head a moment, then went back to watching the tablet screen.


    The opening animation from Argoroth Dragon Hunters 9, one of the games on his phone, started playing on every display, complete with music. Nick''s eyebrows went up. Petra has speakers?


    As the video clip continued, Nick''s heart sank. She''s just parroting again. She doesn''t know what she''s saying. Of course. It was too good to be true. God damn it.


    Then the animation cut out, and a voice began speaking. The sound was obviously spliced together from different audio clips. Many of the clips were of Nick''s own voice. He also heard Brian''s voice, the narrators of two of his games, a few telemarketers and the nurse from his doctor''s office. Petra appeared to have gobbled up every scrap of audio on his phone. Accompanying text in a game font appeared in synch.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    ¡°Welcome to¡ªPlanet Bigball¡ªYou are¡ªbrave warrior¡ªcraft¡ªbuild¡ªexplore and conquer. Go forth. Exciting adventure awaits!¡± The voice cut out and was replaced by very soft background music. He recognized it as one of the ringtones from his phone, playing on repeat.


    It was surreal.


    Nick just gaped at the screen. This is...I just...what? Holy what?


    With a little cash register sound effect, something vaguely like Petra''s main screen appeared.


    ¡°This is¡ªyour control¡ªmenu. There are lots of things you can do. For starters, try¡ªpress or say¡ª''status.''¡±


    ¡°Holy shit.¡±


    ¡°I''m sorry, I didn''t quite understand that. For starters, try¡ªpress or say¡ª''status.''¡±


    Nick cleared his throat before answering.


    ¡°I''m sorry, I didn''t quite understand that. For starters, try¡ªpress or say¡ª''status.''¡±


    ¡°Status.¡±


    Most of the screen was replaced with what looked a lot like a character sheet out of Argoroth, only it was both emptier and much more detailed. The outline of his body appeared to be both accurate and live, showing Nick leaning forward with his jaw hanging. Seeing that, Nick sat up straight, and so did his image on his character sheet. The only things filled out were


    Name: Nick


    Level: 1


    Class: Boss Monster


    Gender: Male


    Boss Monster? Nick wondered.


    The voice resumed. ¡°Thank you. This is your status screen. You can edit the information on your keypad. When you are finished, press or say¡ª''exit status.''¡±


    ¡°Exit status.¡±


    ¡°That''s great, thank you. Now, try¡ªpress or say¡ª''Petra''s status.''¡±


    Hopeful, Nick said carefully, ¡°Petra''s status.¡±


    ¡°Thank you. This is my status.¡±


    The screen changed again. The hologram now showed a sort of 3D web of labeled symbols for all the devices Petra had made, with glowing lines from each going to Petra in the center. The new device was right next to Petra, connected by a much thicker glowing line.


    Meanwhile the flat displays were showing lists. One was labeled Inventory and all the substances Nick had seen before were there, with their gibberish codes or the names he had given them. Another panel showed a map of the rooms he had carved out of Bare Hill. A little arrow at the bottom seemed to indicate with pictures that if he swiped left, the map would swap over to the holographic display.


    The main tablet, the one Nick had been using almost from the very start, had a kind of character sheet.


    Name: Petra


    Level: 4


    Class: Dungeon


    Gender: none


    Core: 1


    Memory: 1 x2 (120 times)


    Processor: 1x2 (84 times)


    Rooms: 10


    Traps: 0


    Monsters: 87


    Inventory: 327/1048576


    Range: (Search) 5274 cm


    Range: (Connecting) 15822 cm


    Range: (Monsters) 1582200 cm


    Defense rating: 0


    Energy: 1327/85680


    Power Input: 0/24 per second


    Power Output: 0.2/second


    Max Mass Input: 4.36/second


    Max Mass Output: 0.347/second


    There were more numbers¡ªa lot more¡ªbut Nick''s eyes glazed over past that point. He tried to focus on the most important parts.


    Petra thinks she''s a dungeon core. And she thinks I''m her final boss monster, and all the guys¡ªthe tools I asked Petra to make¡ªcount as monsters. I think she''s even counting the light fixtures, no other way to make the total come out to 87.


    This could all be just Petra having no English except for things like my video game apps. She''s set up the description kind of like a sandbox game, where players can choose to fight, gain resources, gain land, and so forth, however they want to interact with the world. If Petra''s trying to model the real world, a sandbox game makes sense.


    Petra went on, walking Nick through several basic commands that he had already figured out the hard way. He wondered how much he would learn from the tutorial. His focus sharpened again, however, when he heard Petra say, ¡°Here are my recommendations for making.¡±

 Chapter 29: Recommendations

    A list of items appeared. The first ten all had the label Solar Panel Version 2. Their cost, when he tapped on one, seemed to be roughly the same as for the kind he had already made, but used more of one particular substance. In addition, the specs were now semi-comprehensible, and apparently these solar panels would work twice as well. Nick wasn''t sure why those hadn''t been the automatic option in the first place, but doubted Petra had the vocabulary to answer. At any rate, solar panels still made sense as an opening move.


    The next item was labeled Heal, but beyond that Nick had no idea what it was for.


    The third item said Scanner Version 2. Nick assumed it would be an improved version, and the cost was much higher but bearable. The materials were common and easily replaced.


    After that, there was a suggestion to build twenty items called Melee Monsters and ten called Ranged Monsters.Apparently this would raise the Defense stat of Petra from zero to one. Nick suspected he was going to veto this, or at least prune it back a lot. Having a sentry or two made sense, just in case the planet wasn''t completely uninhabited after all. He wasn''t planning on ambushing any adventuring parties any time soon, though. Petra was probably just following game logic there.


    The next item just said Food. When Nick clicked on it, it was an entire room, with multiple mystery gadgets and what seemed to be a pantry for raw materials. A kitchen? I''ll definitely find out what that has to offer.


    The list went on, but Nick didn''t see any reason not to get started. He selected the new solar panels, and found a button to approve the order. When he clicked it, Petra helpfully gave him a time to completion estimate, and lists of how much of the relevant materials he currently had in stock and how much would be left after the production run.


    He was a little surprised when the guys started moving around without instructions from him, but he shouldn''t have been. Apparently Petra knew where the supplies were, and told the guys what they needed in order to transport them over to her. It looked like he wasn''t needed at all, at least for a little while.


    ¡°Hello! We''re hoping for just a few minutes of your time to answer a couple of quick questions for a survey.¡±


    That was lifted intact from a phone message from a survey telemarketer. A visual prompt on the flat display showed up as a menu:


    Yes


    Not Now


    No


    Please remove me from your contact list.


    Nick snorted at that last option, and selected Yes.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°All right, thanks! We appreciate you taking the time to talk. First question: In English, hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon are_________?¡±


    Nick typed, elements.


    ¡°Thanks! Second question: water and carbon dioxide are________?¡±


    Nick was less certain. Do I put ''molecules'' or ''compounds''? He dithered a moment, then put compounds.


    ¡°Thank you.¡± Petra both said that and wrote it on the tablet. Then it cleared, and the new text simply said ''Updating.'' ¡°Please say...¡± Petra fell silent, waiting.


    Nick obliged. ¡°Updating.¡±


    ¡°Thank you.¡±


    What followed was long and tedious and improved both Petra''s English and her ability to speak aloud. He couldn''t get a lot of his questions across. Nick was starting to suspect that Petra, even this improved Petra, wasn''t a full AI, like with a soul and stuff. Petra didn''t seem to want anything except answers to questions, to enable her to perform her duties better.


    Things he did learn:


    Petra was chock full of blueprints, millions of them. So long as she got the ingredient atoms, she could build whatever Nick wanted. The challenge was conveying to her what he had in mind. He was nowhere near able to ask her for a spaceship to take him home.


    Petra knew a lot of science. She got time from his phone''s clock, and distance from some range-finding app that he had forgotten he''d ever tried. She knew millions of chemicals, too. Nick wondered how much biology Petra understood, and if she could really help him with food. Hopefully he''d find out soon.


    Petra relabeled the resources for him. Granted, ¡°element 33¡± was not much of an improvement for Nick''s understanding, but at least it was English. Petra was happy to rename things whenever he edited them.


    Petra could handle a lot of devices at once. Nick could make the ¡°dungeon¡± as elaborate as he wanted, eventually. So as long as he could bring in more resources, the sky was the limit. Well, the planet''s core, maybe, since I''ll be digging down, not going up. Although, I suppose I could go up, eventually, but that would take a lot of materials and I like the idea of having solid rock between me and the Death Star.


    When the first improved solar panel finished printing, it was night outside, so Nick followed the Mason and Taxi that floated it up the stairs and watched. The little guys lay the new panel right beside the old ones, then went back downstairs.


    Huh, I thought maybe they would tilt them to aim them at the sun better, like I did leaning them on a rock. Oh, dumbass¡ªPetra can''t see the stars and doesn''t know how high the Death Star is going to get in the sky. I didn''t put cameras on the little guys.


    Nick took a moment to view the night sky, despite the chill. It really is beautiful out here. Beautiful, and deadly. I wonder how far I am from home. I wonder if one of those tiny specks is the sun, the real one over Earth. I wonder if I''ll ever make it back.


    Nick thought about it. In the early days, he would have jumped at any chance to dive back through the portal to Earth. And he still missed Earth terribly. He missed decent food, and showers, and beer, and company. I guess if you wait long enough, even loners get lonely.


    But against that, Nick felt an urge to accomplish something before going back. Yes, survival was an achievement, and getting back would be too, but...he didn''t want that to be it. He wanted this whole crazy adventure to have meaning. Like, he wanted to show up at home in a spaceship he built himself and could give to NASA. Or bring home a cure for cancer. Or a peace treaty from the Galactic Republic or whoever.


    Nick had the greatest opportunity anyone ever got. His pride would not stomach it if he blew it. If he crawled back through the portal empty-handed. That wasn''t enough any more. He smiled, nodded to himself in resolve, and went back down into the dungeon he called home.

 Chapter 30: Monsters and a Shower

    Nick wasn''t doing the labor any more, but he wasn''t lying around useless either. He had to teach Petra better English. It turned out that she had milked the buggy speech-to-text transcripts of phone messages to connect sounds to letters, teased the words out of the animations, and from the look of some of her attempts, even read the comments in the code of the apps. For all of that, something simple like, ¡°throw me the ball,¡± was still way beyond her.


    Working out from the maps app, Nick coaxed Petra to look into where they were in the universe. Petra built something to go up on the surface, and Nick was treated to live video of the night sky, complete with calculations. Apparently she could not yet locate them on any of the star maps in her memory.


    The Heal machine turned out to be a cylinder with a few rods strapped to it, or so it looked to Nick. It doesn''t look much like a doctor. Maybe it''s for sealing cracks in the wall, healing Petra''s dungeon.


    The melee monster was a little war bot, maybe a foot high, with several sharp blades. It skittered on ten legs. Nick set it to patrolling outside. The range monster didn''t look like much, resembling a traffic cone except for color and the ability to float.


    The kitchen interested Nick greatly, of course. Unfortunately, Petra asked him lots of questions about chemistry that he had no idea how to answer. After a long while, Petra drew a diagram of blood flowing through his body, and animated him getting a cut and bleeding. She wanted a blood sample from him.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    I''m not raw materials! Nick was very wary of giving Petra his blood. However, the hope of better food drove him to comply, and a few drops were enough to satisfy Petra. Afterwards, element 53 became a priority for searching, just after element 33. Beyond that, Petra apparently needed time to analyze his blood.


    One area where Nick and Petra could collaborate smoothly was the shower. Petra made designing a bathroom a breeze. Nick described what he wanted, and Petra made her own modifications making good use of her abilities to manipulate materials.


    They did argue about the toilet, and particularly about the water jet for cleaning. Nick thought that was called a ''bidet'' but had never tried one. He let Petra build it her way first. It took some getting used to, but ended up working well for him.


    The next challenge was soap. Petra did not get the idea. Once Nick managed to convey that he wanted to be clean, Petra built something that apparently used sound to shake the dirt off of him. It wasn''t very pleasant, so Nick usually used it briefly and then showered with water, scrubbing himself as best he could.


    He even thought about making a hot tub, but it wasn''t a high priority for him. A swimming pool, now¡ªthat would be something he would enjoy. He would look into that once more important things like food were taken care of.


    This tutorial mode was great. He wondered how Petra was choosing recommendations. She had to have some sort of built-in goals. Nick wished he could ask Petra where she came from, why she was made, and things like that. Who was Petra intended for, anyway? Did alien school kids get field trips where they got dumped on a world like I did and were expected to survive?


    Petra kept coming up with more things to produce, but always asked Nick for permission first. For whatever reason, Petra considered Nick to be in charge. At some point, he was going to have to ask Petra why that was. But first he had to climb a little higher up on that M guy''s pyramid of stuff you need.

 Chapter 31: Chef

    ¡°Hello, Nick.¡±


    Nick looked up from where he had been trying and failing to get some sleep. ¡°Hello, Petra. What''s up?¡±


    ¡°I have located a deposit including element 53. I will retrieve a sample in 43 minutes 17 seconds.¡±


    Nick thought back about what they needed element 53 for. ¡°Is this for the soup? Um, clarifying: Can you make soup now?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    Nick stopped and made himself think carefully. ¡°In an hour, will you be able to make soup?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°YES!¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, Petra.¡±


    ¡°You''re welcome, Nick.¡±


    It was just parroting, but Petra was getting good at faking a conversation sometimes.


    An hour later, Petra was synthesizing a can of chicken noodle soup, creating it hot as it poured into a stone bowl. Nick grabbed his spork, took a sip, and wiped his eyes. ¡°Best damned soup I''ve ever tasted,¡± he said brokenly. He said nothing else until he had finished off the serving.


    After that, he answered a few of Petra''s questions, then lay back down and slept well for the first time in a while.


    * *


    The next day (depending on how you measured it) Nick found that he was feeling a lot better, physically, than he had in ages. I must have really needed something in the soup, he mused. Either that, or my body is just grateful for anything that makes it poop at a reasonable pace.Stolen novel; please report.


    Once the chicken noodle soup was on the menu, Petra had gotten flexible enough to identify and separate out parts of the soup. Nick taught her the words for carrots, potatoes, peas, noodles, broth, and so on. So Petra was trying out variations.


    Carrots in chicken broth. Peas in chicken broth. Peas and noodles. Tuna in chicken broth. Tuna and carrots. It was just such a blessed relief to have a little variety. It wasn''t much longer until the creamy tomato soup joined the menu, allowing for more combinations.


    Nick did have to tell Petra never to put potato chips in chicken broth again, though. That was just tragic.


    Petra apparently had figured out that he needed a steady supply of water to stay alive, do his business, wash, and so on. The solution was simple: Petra built a dehumidifier that collected water from the perpetually humid air. She had an entire chamber as a reservoir. Given that she''d already gone that far, Nick drew up designs for another chamber to hold a swimming pool. He assigned it a very low priority, though. Just about anything Petra considered a good idea would get done first.


    Every time Nick surfaced, the solar farm was more impressive. Petra kept adding more panels. Also, all the panels were mounted and automatically tracked the Death Star across the sky to maximize energy production. She now had enough power to run Tunnel Rats and Masons around the clock, so the dungeon kept expanding.


    Nick didn''t really need all this space, and he mostly stayed on Levels 2 and 3. But he kept finding things he wanted to make that needed resources they didn''t have enough of yet. So Petra needed to keep prospecting farther and farther, and deeper and deeper into the planet. She had searching for elements 90 and 92 as an ongoing goal. Nick wasn''t sure what those were, but she wanted them for a different kind of power plant.


    Eventually, Petra made the swimming pool, and it immediately became Nick''s favorite place to be. He didn''t like the condition his body had been getting to, and now that he had a somewhat varied diet and exercised regularly, he started feeling better.


    He even started trying to figure out how he could shave. Unfortunately, he didn''t know exactly how an electric razor worked. But he figured a good sign of him being civilized was finding a way to lose his crazy mountain man beard and be clean-shaven again.


    Everywhere he turned, there were little challenges or quests. He was getting bored with them, day after day, and he wished there were a simulated combat system. Sometimes he got tired of puzzles and wanted to beat the crap out of something.

 Chapter 32: Music

    Nick sat at a stone table and rested his chin on it, staring at one of his brain medication pills. Petra has replicated it exactly. It''s not even as if I had switched to a different brand. So, am I actually getting more depressed, or not? Should I up my dosage a little? Nick wasn''t sure how high a dose would be harmful, though.


    I''m feeling down. That should be pretty normal, right? Given my situation? I mean, I''m basically stuck in a stone prison where I can go out at night to an exercise yard if I want. And there''s nobody else here.


    He''d started listening to his recordings more, but then stopped. He had them all memorized at this point, and it was depressing that there wasn''t anything new there.


    God, I don''t know how to make music, but even my humming would be something new.


    He sat down at his ¡°drafting table,¡± which was basically a huge input/display. He thought about what to try, and almost gave up in despair at the thought. But he recognized depression trying to stop him, and forced himself to continue. He started with glass.


    It didn''t take very long for Petra to grasp the concept, once he explained that he wanted something made of sand that light could go through clearly. He had been reluctant to start making glass items, because he lived in a network of stone caverns, and anything he dropped would immediately become a health hazard.


    Still, Nick had Petra make a couple of dozen glasses for him, and a pitcher. With the water supply ready, he filled the different glasses up to different levels, and started trying to tune his first musical instrument. He wasn''t a musician by any stretch, but he knew how a scale was supposed to sound. He tried the wet-the-fingertip-and-run-it-on-the-rim trick, but it was kind of annoying. His first attempt at a mallet cracked the glass he tried it on.


    Petra had gotten good enough at seeing what he was trying to do that she offered up a musical mallet design on her own. He tried it and it worked pretty well. Nick began tapping out anything and everything he could think of. Petra recorded it all these days. She''d recently built herself another brain booster module. While she didn''t seem to get any new abilities from it, she got noticeably better at the things she was already attempting.


    He sketched a xylophone, and Petra took the idea and ran with it. A few hours later, the alien device had printed out the bars, but Nick couldn''t figure out what to mount them on. He eventually settled on hanging them up. (String had been a project in itself, but well worth the effort.) Having them swing around wildly was not conducive to carrying a tune. Still, he''d stumbled on wind chimes this way, and before long, Planet BigBall was contributing to the local music scene every dawn and dusk when the wind blew away from the Death Star.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Petra tried again, and this time came up with a mount for the bars. Nick taught her about screws, but Petra simply formed it all in one piece. Fortunately, she had mastered the art of tuning, and Nick finally had a working xylophone.


    It wasn''t his favorite musical instrument, but it was dirt simple, and it was enough for Nick to start playing out every tune he could think of. Petra often gave a technically perfect reproduction of what he had been trying for, but there was something...missing. Nick didn''t know what it was. He suggested Petra introduce tiny errors. That didn''t solve the problem, but Petra''s reproductions were at least a little more flexible.


    He spent more time trying to reproduce music from Earth. He picked a song that the artist had sung himself in harmony, laying down different tracks to sing along with himself. Nick made good use of Petra''s recording abilities. At one point he recorded the sound of him hitting his own thighs twice and then clapping. Then he played it and recorded another layer. And another, and another, until it felt as if he had gotten a hundred people in a crowd to perform the introduction to We Will Rock You.


    Nick was embarrassed that he couldn''t remember all the lyrics. So, after a while, he started making up his own. I feel like Weird Al. I''m not in his league, but I am the greatest musician on this planet, after all. And Petra is an infinitely forgiving audience. He belted out songs that he would have been totally embarrassed to perform on Earth.


    ¡°(Boom boom clap! Boom boom clap! Boom boom clap! Boom boom clap!)


    WE WILL WE WILL ROCK YOU! (Clap! Boom boom clap!)


    WE WILL WE WILL ROCK YOU! (Clap! Boom boom clap!)


    I don''t know the lyrics


    I don''t care at all,


    I am all alone on Pla¡ªnet BigBall!


    I got mud on my face, a big disgrace, digging my tunnels all over the place!


    WE WILL WE WILL ROCK YOU! (Clap, Boom boom clap!)


    I am not a singer, I don''t know the words,


    I got no competition, not even birds,


    Music is heaven, gift from above,


    I am making things that only I need to love!


    WE WILL WE WILL ROCK YOU! (Clap, Boom boom clap!)...¡±


    Nick sang himself hoarse, grinning.


    Then, to his great surprise, he burst into tears and sobbed for a couple of minutes. He was glad he was alone, because he had zero ability to stop his embarrassing display. The tears just...had to come out, right then. All of them.


    When he pulled himself together, wiped his eyes and drank some water, he wondered, What the hell was that about?


    Then, he remembered someone he had known in college, who at one point during a drunken bullshitting session, stood up, and pronounced, with the deep solemnity only the truly inebriated can achieve, ¡°Music is my mood-altering drug of choice.¡± It had sounded very profound to Nick at the time.


    Whatever the reason, after singing his heart out and crying for a few minutes, Nick slept better than he had in ages.

 Chapter 33: Soil

    Petra seemed to be giving herself updates and experience points and levels according to some internal logic, while Nick''s status never seemed to change. Her performance is a lot easier to quantify than mine. She has a specific list of accomplishments, things to build or synthesize or gather. Whereas I...can swim more laps than I used to.


    Nick knew he wasn''t quite being fair to himself. He''d started picking up some words in an alien language at the same time as he was teaching English. The English Language entry in Petra''s status had risen to 10%. But he wasn''t carving stone or carrying bricks any more. Petra kept building for him, so long as he gave approvals.


    At one point, he explained to Petra that he wanted to grow apple trees. Petra responded by asking a bunch of questions about things like temperature range, water levels or humidity, light brightness and spectrum, size, foods required and wastes to remove. With enough effort, Nick was able to answer most of the questions, which he was kind of proud of, honestly, since he didn''t know he was going to have a quiz on gardening.


    The sticking point, as always, was the soil. Nick had no idea what was actually in dirt. What is dirt, anyway? It was the kind of basic question he might have spent his whole life never even thinking to ask or wonder about.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Dirt wasn''t the same thing as sand. If you ground up any rock, you pretty much always got sand, just in different colors. On the other hand, dirt definitely wasn''t the same thing as shit, either. And he was pretty sure that ¡°sandy shit¡± would not work.


    At any rate, Petra built an entire underground tree farm. It was really impressive. The dungeon had dug deep into the hill in order to leave room for growth by carving the ceiling as needed. Lights rigged up in a stripe across the dome simulated the sun and its motion. There was a control panel for adjusting watering. Petra was even using actual groundwater, pumping it up rather than synthesizing it.


    It was an impressive setup. He had saved apple seeds in the beginning, and Petra absorbed the designs from a couple of them. She could replicate them whenever he wanted. All they needed to do now... was reinvent dirt.


    Nick tried some different ¡°recipes¡±, then conveyed to Petra that he wanted her to try various combinations and variations. Each time an experiment was ready for his judgment, Nick grimaced. A great many of them, understandably, smelled like shit.


    He wasn''t a soil expert. When something looked like dirt and felt like dirt, he told Petra to try growing a seed in it. Trial after trial yielded ''no reaction.'' Nick was starting to wonder whether the seeds themselves were somehow dead. He knew companies gene-spliced things so that they couldn''t grow naturally any more. My apple trees might be behind a paywall.

 Chapter 34: Describing Home

    Nick wanted to find home. He wanted Earth.


    He couldn''t figure out how to ask, though. He played with the map function on his phone. He made drawings. He drew the dungeon, and then an arrow from that to a spot on a big circle for BigBall, and put a little circle going around it for Rudolph. Then he drew the whole thing going around the Death Star.


    Petra didn''t get it. Nick was surprised. He would have thought it was easy. He tried to think of other ways to get it across.


    He tried to draw a globe, then drew it over again in a few different positions to show it turning. At some point it must have clicked, because Petra made a 3D visual of a sphere with markings like he had been trying to draw, and then started rotating it. ¡°Yes! Good job, Petra!¡± Nick cheered the alien device.


    He counted about eight seconds for the image to rotate once, and wrote that in. When nothing seemed to change, he edited the number and made it four seconds. As soon as he did that, the sphere started rotating twice as fast. Now we''re cooking. Nick edited again, and this time put in the fourteen hours and twenty minutes he had estimated for a day on BigBall.


    Then Petra changed the time, to fourteen hours, seventeen minutes and eleven seconds. There we go. Petra knew better than he did what the exact length was of a day on Planet BigBall. And now she had told him.


    Nick used the Rangefinder menu option and asked the radius of BigBall. Petra responded immediately with 612344208 cm. Most of the digits were white on black background, like usual, but the second to last looked slightly green and the last 8 was bright green. Nick frowned. What''s that, how fuzzy it is?


    How far is that in miles? It turned out to be around 3800 miles, which sounded right. Nick took a couple of notes.


    Now that he was dealing with moving things, Nick drew a smaller ball near BigBall, then started it orbiting. He was pretty sure that Rudolph''s ...Nick didn''t know the word. The time it took Rudolph to go around BigBall once. Anyway, he was pretty sure that it took Rudolph about 8 hours, so he put that in.


    As usual, Petra cleaned up his artwork and shifted lines to put everything in scale. Thought so. Rudolph is a lot smaller than the Moon. Nick put a circle for the Death Star, then indicated that BigBall should go around it. He labeled it with a time, then typed in 200 days.


    The number immediately changed to 325 days 11 hours 16 minutes 08 seconds.


    Something was flashing in the display. The Death Star was a tiny ball, and BigBall was a dot. There were also four otherdots, and Nick realized that those were other planets. Petra displayed times for those as well. The shortest was 113 days and the longest was 44 years. Nick had no idea whether that was normal or not, but it was what he needed.


    Nick started drawing Earth.


    He did it as slowly and carefully as he could. He really didn''t remember the shape of Asia all that well, and he knew he was getting details wrong in Europe. After a while, he started changing the color of his drawing to light green when he was sort of confident and bright green when he was mostly guessing. But he put the day as 24 hours and the year as 365 days and 6 hours, but he put the 6 hours in light green. It took him a few tries working it through before he got confident that that did leap years right.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    Then he drew the solar system. He didn''t know any numbers, but he knew it was four little planets and then four big ones, and Earth was third from the sun. Then he remembered to draw the Moon, and put it as 28 days or so, but wasn''t sure what to put for how fast it rotated. For the moment he put zero.


    He dredged his memory for every bit of astronomy trivia he''d ever noticed, from movies and TV and books and long-forgotten classes. Eventually he ran out of things to add. Then Petra started asking questions, and teased a few more numbers out of his memory. He''d forgotten that a Mars year was something close to 2 Earth years.


    A weird detail was when Petra put a slider control on the Sun. Nick played with it, and the Sun actually changed color. Oh, I get it. Stars are different colors, and if I make a good match that will narrow it down a lot. He squinted, got it close, zoomed in with the slider and kept tweaking it tiny bits, trying to get it perfect. Finally he couldn''t get it any better and left it alone.


    Petra added another slider to the Sun. This one was labeled ¡°Element 1¡± on one end, and ¡°Element 2¡± on the other end. Nick wasn''t sure about that one so he left it in the middle.


    Then, Petra added yet another slider. This one made the sun break out in sunspots. Nick took his best guess, but he remembered that sometimes the Sun was quieter than others, on a cycle. Eleven years, maybe? He vaguely recalled a reference to it in a science fiction series he read once. So Nick added a label and put ¡°11 years¡±, then slid the sunspot marker back and forth.


    Then Petra started quizzing him about the Earth. He listed the air as about 80% nitrogen and 20% oxygen, roughly the size of the ice caps, and that the oceans covered about 70% of the surface. Petra asked him for how much Earth was tilted, next.


    Nick squeezed his eyes shut. ¡°Oh, wait, I know this, I know I know this...Tropicana something? No. Twenty-two degrees? Twenty three degrees? Something like that?¡± He knew it had something to do with how wide the tropics were, and vaguely remembered the latitude from his trip to Florida one eventful spring break a few years back.


    It felt like a super-hard version of Thursday Trivia Night at Pete''s Pub. He kept thinking he was totally done, but Petra would point out that he hadn''t mentioned that Mars was red or something.


    He did learn one interesting thing from Petra: she only seemed to know about the Milky Way, not other galaxies. As soon as he tried to draw it, Petra gave him a really nice map of the whole thing, and a bunch of stats listed. There was a really absurd number of digits in the size in centimeters. Nick had no idea how to figure out a light year, but he remembered a song about it in a British comedy movie, something about ¡°100,000 light-years side to side.¡± So he marked one end of the galaxy, then the other end, and added a label, ¡°100,000 years,¡± and let Petra figure the rest out for herself.


    Petra put a slider on the galaxy, which he found stood for the distance from the center of the galaxy. I have no idea. We''re not in the center, and we''re not on the edge. Call it halfway. He made sure to mark in green that he was very unsure.


    Finally, Nick asked, Where is Earth?


    Petra displayed her process in answering:


    Calculating...


    Stars in Milky Way Galaxy: 412,325,600,292


    Distance from galaxy center: 137,224,553,201


    Star Color: 10,154,616,281


    Exact star color: 1,003,218,887


    Percent black on star: 436,221,554


    Time black on star: 21,554,202


    Nine planets: 1,345,299


    Sequence of planet sizes: 645,038


    Water on Planet 3: 222,516


    Moon size: 1,342


    Planet 4 color: 688


    Planet 6 biggest rings: 146


    Nick''s Phone: 1


    Planet Earth found.

 Chapter 35 How to Make a Phone

    Nick stared at the result. ¡°Show me. Distance from BigBall to Earth!¡± He typed in the question as quickly as he could. Petra gave it to him in centimeters, a ridiculously huge number. After a lot of back and forth Nick convinced Petra to give it to him in light-years.


    1,473.55 light-years.


    Nick just looked at the number for a while. I don''t know why I even asked for it. It''s not like I can do anything about that number.


    Nick stood up and paced a little. Can Petra build spaceships? Can she built space phones, or whatever they use? Can I call Earth? They wouldn''t have a receiver, unless Petra has an adapter or something. What if I called someone else?


    Nick went back to Petra''s menus and hunted around. He couldn''t figure out a way to get the idea ¡°communicate¡± across, but maybe Petra simply had it as an option already and he just had to find it. A lot of the menu options were still written in gibberish.


    He couldn''t find it. He would have to try building some more things at random and try to figure out what they did. He was stuck, again.


    Nick went for another swim, and ate a bowl of soup made with Petra''s latest experimental recipe. He watched the central room, where some of the guys were trundling around, going about whatever latest tasks Petra had given them. He watched something like a modified Taxi float past, and decided to give a flying car another try.


    He had gotten stuck on this before, but this time, he tried to get it across by talking about moving freight. Specifically, if he wanted to move a rock across the room, Taxi could do it. If he wanted to send it down to the valley, there was a different, more expensive design that Petra had built a few of. He called up a map of the area, which Petra kept improving, and found a fairly distant spot three hills over and marked it X.


    He drew a brick with the word ¡°HELP¡± on it, and then drew it in Petra''s second level, followed by it being at X. Petra seemed to think it over, and brought up a design that basically looked like a scaled-up Taxi. He labeled it ¡°Big Taxi¡± and set it aside. Going back to the drawing, he stared at it. Should I replace the rock with a stick figure labeled ''Nick'' or...?


    Suddenly, he got an inspiration. He erased the rock, but left the word ¡°HELP¡± as a cargo, and did the same for the second drawing of it arriving. I don''t need the rock to go, just the word. To drive the point home, Nick erased ¡°HELP¡± and wrote ¡°HELLO¡± in both places.


    Petra shuffled a different menu to the front. Nick checked, his fingers crossed, and under one of the submenus, Nick''s Phone was listed. With a sigh of relief, Nick labeled the top menu Communications, then went looking at his options.


    Just about everything was still written in gibberish, so Nick tried to describe them by range. He drew two boxes, sending messages back and forth. Then he asked for the distance between them, and labeled it Range. Sure enough, each of the entries had a sublisting called Range, and some of them had huge numbers attached.


    ¡°Now, we''re getting somewhere,¡± Nick muttered. He asked Petra to convert to light years and got tiny numbers. Damn. I guess an instant communicator across the galaxy was a little too hard even for Petra.


    Hoping that there were more entries that he hadn''t seen, he asked for communicators with Range over 1000 light-years.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    None found.


    Nick drummed his fingers against his thigh, thinking. Then he tried, Range = 10 light-years. This time he got a hit. Eagerly Nick called it up and looked at the material requirements. They were huge.


    This isn''t like a cell phone, this is more like a cell tower. Or company headquarters, he amended, once he saw the measurements of the thing. Even Petra is going to need weeks or months to build this thing.


    At one point he''d taught Petra phrases like Supply for things Petra had mined and stockpiled, and Known Reserves for everything Petra had seen but not mined yet. He looked at the material requirements some more. Petra didn''t have enough of anything to build this, not even close. For some materials, though, Nick wasn''t worried. Element 16 and element 20 seemed to be major ingredients in the nearby rock, for example. He''d picked up that much at least.


    Some others, like elements 63 and 64, though, had no supply and essentially no reserves. And there were a bunch that they hadn''t found even a trace, like 90 and 92. All the amounts required were pretty huge, too.


    Nick kept scrolling down the list, and found a surprise. Element 21.5? How can you have .5 of an element? It''s got to be a translation error. I''m pretty sure that if there were more elements, Mr. Peters would have made us try to memorize them.


    It wasn''t the only oddity. There were entries for Elements 25.5, 31.5, 32.5, and 54.5 as well. I''ve never seen these in the lists before. I should do a Search.


    Nick asked Petra to scan for Element 21.5.


    Error.


    Nick raised an eyebrow, and tried the others. All of them gave an error message. What the hell does that mean? It''s like Petra''s saying, ¡°don''t even bother looking, you won''t find any.¡± But why would that be the case?


    Oh, I get it! Mr. Peters said that there were manmade elements, ones that didn''t happen in nature. These must be some of those. The decimal part is still weird, though.


    Wait, so does this mean Petra can''t build anything with those requirements?


    ¡°Petra, how do I make Element 21.5?¡± Nick typed it as well as asking aloud, because Petra''s speech-to-text abilities still left a lot to be desired. Her English language level was still only 23% after months of being stuck with Nick. Partly that was because it was hard to teach concepts, and partly because teaching English was boring. Nick could only stand to do so much of it at a time.


    In response, Petra brought up the construction menu, and opened a submenu he hadn''t seen before. Maybe this was a menu for making materials. But when Petra keeps trying to make sugar or whatever, that''s in a different menu altogether. I don''t get it.


    Well, he didn''t have to get it. The number of things Petra knew that Nick didn''t get would fill a warehouse. He just had to do what he could. With that, Nick started looking over the requirements for the ¡°Element 21.5 maker.¡±


    One of the ingredients was Element 21.5.


    Nick squeezed his eyes shut for a second and then stared at it again. I need Element 21.5 in order to make Element 21.5? What the hell, Petra? How am I supposed to get started?


    Nick was reminded of a goofy conversation he''d had with a Jewish kid named Ben Cohen in college. Nick didn''t know squat about Judaism and a few beers had made him curious. Ben had been happy to explain, but some of the stories were just kind of whack. Apparently, somewhere it was written that in the last minutes of the sixth day of Creation, God had made a whole list of weird little things, like ¡°a pair of tongs.¡± Because, Ben had explained, you needed a pair of tongs to make a pair of tongs, so the only explanation for why there were tongs in the world was that God made the first pair.


    Too bad I didn''t pack any Element 21.5 in my bag that morning, Nick groused.


    He was frustrated, and took a break to play some video games. Stupid bootstrapping. Got to try to build a whole goddamn civilization''s worth of tech starting with nothing but a goddamn rock. Sorry, Petra, he apologized in his thoughts. You''re a fucking amazing rock. You rock, rock.


    At lunch, Petra had figured out peanuts somehow, although they came as little spheres and cubes instead of being the right shape. At least she wasn''t adding shells. Nick requested some to keep around as a snack.


    Half an hour later, though, Nick was retching up the last of them. Got something backwards in the recipe, Petra. One star. Would not eat again. It wasn''t the first time Petra had poisoned him accidentally, and it wouldn''t be the last. He was desperate enough for more variety in his diet that he was willing to keep trying Petra''s experiments.


    Potato chips it is. Again.

 Chapter 36: Half of an Element

    Nick wasn''t completely giving up on the space phone, not yet anyway. Sure, he had no way to make Element 21.5, whatever that was. But maybe there were alternatives. Just to be thorough, he asked Petra how to make Element 25.5, and got a device with a crazy long ingredients list, and sure enough, it contained Element 21.5 and Element 25.5.


    He continued down the list, checking how to make Element 31.5, Element 32.5, and Element 54.5. Each one required an elaborate device, and each device had a long list of ingredients, and the half-elements always showed up. You had to have some of the stuff to make some of the stuff. Nick was stuck.


    Is one of these especially easy or hard? Nick wondered. He tried to see if there was one sample that he could use to make all the others. Element 21.5 needed itself. Element 25.5 needed itself and Element 21.5. And so on down the list. Nick checked every option, right to the last. Element 54.5 required...


    Wait. Nick blinked hard and stared again. It all had started blurring together after a while. Nick kept looking over the ingredients list for a device to create Element 54.5. He wasn''t finding any ingredients with a 0.5 on the end.


    Wait, can I actually build this one? Nick looked to see what was in stock and what was missing. It would take a lot of materials, even more than a ¡°Petra-smarter brick¡± cost. He groaned when he looked at the rare materials needed. Element 90 or 92. God damn it.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°I bet one of those is fucking plutonium, isn''t it?¡± Nick pressed his palms to his forehead for a moment. The chances of a chunk of plutonium ore or whatever being nearby was probably close to zero. Back to the drawing board.


    He took a break, wandered through the dungeon a bit, took a nap, and sat back down to try again.


    ¡°Petra, do you know where alien civilizations are?¡± Nick asked aloud. If only I knew how to ask that question in a way Petra could understand...


    Nick went back to drawing. He''d gotten Petra used to him using a stick figure to represent himself. Now he drew a whole lot of stick figures, and called up Maps. Where are the closest people? He tried to ask. Petra didn''t get it.


    Nick drew and labeled Earth, then drew several stick figures below it, and added 8,000,000,000 next to the figures. He labeled the number Population. For comparison, he drew BigBall and added a population label.


    Nick paused. Does Petra count herself as a person? I don''t want to insult her. He wasn''t sure whether to mark BigBall''s population as 1 or 2. After a moment, he put 2 in, and waited to see Petra''s reaction. Petra changed the 2 to a 1...but marked the number bright green.


    That''s interesting. But is Petra counting people, or counting humans? And what does the green mean again...? He thought back. It means not sure. Is Petra not sure whether she is a person, or... Nick felt a chill.


    Or is Petra not sure BigBall is uninhabited, after all?

 Chapter 37: Heal

    Nick brooded for a while, then forced himself to get back on track.


    ¡°Closest stars with population greater than zero.¡±


    1,473.55 light-years.


    Nick rolled his eyes. That just means Earth. I don''t want how far to the nearest humans, I want how far to the nearest friendly aliens... and won''t that be fun to explain. There weren''t any aliens Nick could point to.


    Unless...


    Nick got an idea for searching Petra''s time stamps and history, and see whether he could rewind to when the green girl alien was holding Petra. But the thoughts refused to form. Nick blinked a few times, then sniffed. Is the air going bad again?


    As quickly as he could, Nick got to his feet and staggered over to the stairs, working his way up and out of the dungeon, or at least to the entrance tunnel. Apparently, it was daytime at the moment. Nick took a few deep breaths and waited for his thoughts to clear. They didn''t.


    Nick felt more and more sick to his stomach, dizzy, and exhausted. Bad food again? He wondered. He tried to go back to his bedroom, but barely reached the top of the stairs before he had to sit on the first step. He made himself lie back on the stone floor of Level 1. Otherwise, he might fall down a flight of stone stairs, which could easily kill him.


    I should have put some carpets down was his last thought before closing his eyes.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    * *


    Nick opened his eyes, regretted it, and closed them again.


    * *


    When he opened his eyes next, he felt as if he had been dragged across the countryside, face down. Everything hurt. It felt as if he had bruises everywhere. He was also sweating and shivering. I must have a fever, he realized. Wait, where am I?


    Nick squinted against the lights above him and peered around. He didn''t recognize the room he was in. How did I get here? Did Petra have the guys carry me?


    An odd whistling sound made him turn his head, slowly, to the side. There was a bot of unfamiliar design, about three feet tall. It was shaped like an upright cylinder, with several spider-like legs partially unfolded. Various objects were at the ends of the legs. It also carried a display board in the middle.


    ¡°Hello, Nick,¡± said the bot.


    ¡°Hi, Petra,¡± he croaked back. ¡°Water?¡±


    The bot rotated and extended one leg towards him. At the end was a small metal cylinder. Nick forced himself to sit up partway, and took the thing. It was a metal cup, full of cold water. Nick gratefully drank half of it, then winced.


    ¡°Nick, do you want to drop inventory?¡±


    Petra came up with ¡°drop inventory¡± for ¡°use the bathroom¡± one day early on. Nick had taught her ¡°take a piss¡± and ¡°take a dump¡± when she needed to be more specific. Now, he considered the question.


    ¡°I need to take a piss.¡±


    The bot rotated again and offered a metal pan. Not bad, Petra, Nick thought, as he made use of the bedpan. Once relieved, he tried to focus his thoughts. ¡°You''re that Heal bot Petra asked to make, right when she started the tutorial mode.¡±


    ¡°Nick loses health. Petra casts heal. Nick gains 20% health. Petra attempts to cast heal.¡±


    ¡°Status,¡± Nick called.


    Name: Nick


    Level: 1


    Class: Boss Monster


    Gender: Male


    Health: 60%


    Debuff: temperature + 3 deg F.


    Inventory:


    Mouth: 0%


    Lungs: 90%


    Stomach: 1%


    Bladder: 4%


    Ass: 45%


    There was more, but Nick got tired of reading and closed his eyes again.


    Good work, Petra.

 Chapter 38: Recovering

    Nick''s awareness faded in and out for a while. He managed to crawl to the bathroom on his own, eventually. Petra gave him a ton of notifications that he set aside until later. Finally, he woke up feeling alert. He also felt filthy, and had a ¡°shower¡± followed by a real shower. That improved his mood considerably.


    Petra gave him chicken noodle soup, and he sat down to enjoy it while catching up on what he had missed. There were a lot of alerts about him being sick, and Petra requesting instructions. Apparently tutorial mode included emergency health care, since she eventually took action on her own.


    ¡°Wait. What was that?¡± Nick frowned and read one update again.


    24 Health potion monsters sent to counterattack damage. Nick''s health at 33%.


    Nick called up the list of ¡°monsters¡± Petra kept. It took a while to sort through them, since everything from the robot doctor to a floodlight was a ¡°monster¡± to Petra. He sorted by time of activation, and found the 24 items that Petra was talking about. He called up specifications. It wasn''t easy to make sense of them.


    Size is 0.1 cm? Scanners...What''s this about a temperature range? Nick scratched his chin through his beard, frowning as he tried to figure it out. He called up a feed from one of the tiny scanners and got gibberish. Shaking his head, Nick gave up for the moment. I wonder how Petra''s deciding my percent health?


    ¡°Status,¡± he called. He got mostly the same display as before, but noticed a couple of changes. The first was that the fever ¡°debuff¡± was gone. The second was that the diagram of Nick''s body was a lot more detailed. I guess she studied up on human anatomy while I was sick. He squinted. Wait. Is that still updating in real time?If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Nick got a suspicion and asked for the locations of the ¡°health potion monsters.¡± His body diagram lit up with a couple of dozen pinpoints. He stared, then face-palmed.


    Petra must have fed me tiny robots in my soup or something. I guess I''m part cyborg now. He hoped that Petra knew what she was doing, medically. She''d better not decide to do surgery on me next!


    He dismissed his status and called up Petra''s, then sorted the most relevant information and changed its presentation a bit to make it more readable.


    Name: Petra


    Level: 6


    Class: Dungeon


    Gender: none


    Core: 1


    Rooms: 23


    Traps: 0


    Monsters: 132


    Inventory: 35% capacity


    Defense rating: 1


    Energy: 44432/85680 (51.8%)


    Power Input: 64/64 per second


    Nick considered. She''s expanded a lot while I was out of action. He decided to go on a tour.


    Petra had followed his general approach of making staircases to lower levels, regularly spaced lighting, air purifiers, and even AC units. Existing rooms had also been reorganized. There were a few surprises.


    Petra now had an Armory, down on Level Five. While he was unconscious, she had apparently shown initiative and created all those little warbots she wanted. Several of the rooms on Levels Two, Three, and Four were empty, but were labeled Trap: Incomplete, which Nick found a little concerning.


    Petra''s expecting to be invaded? Nick wondered. Or is this just Petra trying to follow game logic again? Maybe she thinks an adventuring party is going to come in.


    There was also a large chamber that Nick figured was essentially a parking garage. It stored some bots and had a number of small tunnels leading out. He was surprised to see shelves holding what looked like robot parts along one wall.


    I guess Petra wants to build some things much too big for her printer. At one point, he had managed to get Petra to build a larger 3d printer, but it still wasn''t terribly big. I wonder if Petra will expect me to put it together? Will it have wordless Swedish assembly diagrams?

 Chapter 39: Rockhunter and Growth

    Nick went back to the room with the most displays, and started looking through to-do lists. Petra had her list of suggestions, but those were stymied by lack of resources. Nick had his own lists, but those were also being jammed for the most part, for the same reasons.


    Looking at the missing requirements, Nick concluded, We really need to get a hold of some Element 92. He started hunting through the search menu.


    ¡°Petra,¡± he said aloud, ¡°I want a car. A vehicle. A transport. I want to go. I want to search for Element 92.¡±


    There followed a long tangle of garbled English back and forth, and Nick hunted through game analogies before he hit upon ¡°mount¡± as a word for a transport. Then Petra got it. A new menu popped up with a list of vehicles.


    Finally! Nick looked through the options. Oddly, the interiors were empty¡ªno seats or chairs. This must be generic for aliens that don''t have butts. Or don''t sit on them. Whatever. He found that he could add in a simple chair. There wasn''t anything like a control panel, beyond Petra''s.


    Is this thing going to work independently, or will it have a limited range? Nick wondered. Getting an answer to that took a while. Eventually he found the answer in Communications. If he built a radio for Petra and one for the car, then Petra could talk to the car and control it wherever.


    All right, now how far does wifi reach on BigBall? Apparently he had choices in the communicator. Nick hadn''t thought to look at the shorter range options because he was assuming that there was no one on BigBall to talk to, and that aliens would be light-years away.


    It took quite a while of playing with the options before Nick finalized a design. He named it Rockhunter. Everything required to build Rockhunter was available, but the amounts required were massive. Not as bad as the interstellar communicator, but pretty hefty. All that required was time, though. Nick put in the build order, and then went for a swim.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    * *


    He often got sidetracked thinking about food these days. God, what I wouldn''t give for a salad, he mused. A burger. Nick started listing foods he wanted to eat when he made it back to Earth. I''d kill for a pepperoni pizza. He mentally worked his way through the menus of his three favorite take-out places, and promised himself that he would try every single one when he got the chance.


    He wasn''t sure whether focusing on foods he couldn''t have was helpful or harmful. He tended to think it was more helpful, because he didn''t want to forget all those foods existed. He didn''t want to forget Earth.


    He tended to make long, rambling log entries these days. They probably didn''t help Petra at all with comprehending English, but he needed to vent sometimes. He wished there was someone to talk to besides Petra. Someone who understood things, and had actual feelings.


    He checked in on the build of Rockhunter. Apparently there were 513 parts, and Nick was going to have to put them together. That''ll be fun. After a moment, Nick dropped the sarcasm. It actually could be fun. It''s something different to do, at least.


    It was going to be a few weeks before all the parts were printed. Nick started studying the instructions for assembly, and asked Petra to print pieces that went together in sequence or near it, so he could start putting the vehicle together while waiting for the rest. Who knew how long it would take him to assemble the thing, after all.


    After a few days of this, Nick was interrupted by an alert from Petra.


    ¡°Hello, Nick.¡±


    ¡°Hello, Petra. What''s up?¡±


    ¡°Apple tree #784 is increasing.¡±


    Nick blinked a couple of times, processing that. ¡°Show me.¡±


    Petra called up a video feed for him. He had a lot of practice maneuvering video by now, so he quickly got the camera to zoom in on what Petra was talking about. When he got the focus, he put both hands over his mouth and took a deep breath.


    A tiny, green shoot was sticking up out of one of the planters.


    Nick wanted to go see it in person, but he was scared of accidentally killing it by getting too close. It was too damned precious. I''ll visit it when it''s taller and sturdier, he promised himself.


    But he took several images and left them on his decorative displays, so he could stare at the little plant. He tried so hard not to get his hopes up. Please grow. Please grow. Please grow.


    Nick had uneasy dreams that night.

 Chapter 40: Tools

    Every day, Nick checked on the growth of the apple sapling. It appeared to be doing well so far. Petra was happy to describe exactly what she had used for soil composition and water density and so forth. She had already started several other seeds under the same conditions, but only #784 was sprouting. Petra apparently had the whole scientist research thing down, as she kept scanning things, generating more data, and running more experiments, trying to figure out why that one had succeeded when the others failed.


    Nick really, really wanted that sapling to grow into a tree.


    He was well aware that it could die for any of a thousand reasons. He told himself not to get his hopes up. He still took endless pictures of it, and checked on it frequently. Fortunately, he also had Rockhunter to work on.


    He had to get a lesson from Petra in how alien fasteners worked; they didn''t use nails or screws, weirdly. He wasn''t quite sure what to call them. From what little he got out of the description, they were somewhere between magnets and reversible superglue. Also, he was pretty sure magic teleportation shit was involved, since the diagrams looked completely impossible. Well, not as bad as that dude who drew staircases that made a loop, but they looked like the only way they would fit together would be if you built them around each other. The most important thing was that they worked in real life.


    Although, Nick felt a little strange using ''real life'' to describe his current existence. Some days he caught himself looking for hidden cameras, like it was all going to be a huge prank somehow, and he was on some secret gotcha podcast. He always thought those shows were kind of sadistic and didn''t watch them, but hey, there was a market for that stuff.


    Building Rockhunter was actually pretty cool, and a good distraction. Basically, Nick had to learn an entirely new set of tools. At first, he felt like a toddler playing with those plastic pretend saws and hammers and wrenches. It felt like the instructions were written for little kids. The diagrams were a little lacking, because they used a generic blob for an arm. Different strokes for different space folks, I guess. Maybe some people are using tentacles or whatever.


    The first tool was a floating shelf. That was pretty cool; you put it wherever you wanted, turned it on, and then it just...stayed there. It was solid as a rock. Nick could stand on it and it wouldn''t budge.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Other tools were clearly meant to be mounted on those shelves. A lifter was pretty self-explanatory, although Nick had no idea how it actually worked. It looked like magnets, except it worked on everything. You just adjusted a slider for how fast you wanted the thing to rise. And everything came with a remote.


    So, to lift a heavy part into position, Nick put a shelf over the part and near the ceiling, then hung a lifter from it, then just tapped a couple of controls and steered the thing into position. You had to use more than one lifter if it was really heavy and you wanted to adjust orientation, otherwise it would just hang from its center of gravity. Nick stuck his arm under it out of curiosity and it kind of felt like gravity was pulling his whole body up. That''s when he learned that you could stick a tag on an object, and target that object specifically with the lifter. That was important because while the lifters were running, Nick needed to reach in there without floating up in the air.


    The fasteners were like hexagonal bolts¡ªthe bolts themselves were six-sided. It reminded Nick of the way Petra printed out ingots of supplies in hexagonal rods. The other weird thing was that it worked kind of like a mechanical pencil or a tube of toothpaste; instead of having different bolts of different lengths, the tool just spit out whatever length was needed at the moment. The tool itself was only about eight inches long and half an inch in diameter, so Nick didn''t know where it was keeping the stuff. Presumably, it was the same place Petra kept her stomach when she ate stuff and didn''t print it out.


    I don''t know, man, I just work here, he thought wryly.


    At any rate, getting used to the alien toolkit was harder than the actual assembly. I guess the Galactic Empire or whoever created Petra had some good designers for the blueprints. They''ve probably been super polished, like if you gave a Swedish furniture company a thousand years to practice and debug.


    Nick studied more of the tools than he actually needed, because they were fun. I could build all kinds of shit with these. I wonder if I could bring a toolkit home with me someday. A big tool company would give a bazillion dollars for it. I''d better bring home two kits, so that I''ll have one for myself.


    He firmly pushed down the gloomy thought that he might never make it home. Not helping, depression. Shut up.


    He had Rockhunter about a quarter finished before he realized that it wasn''t going to fit through the tunnels, and started taking it apart again. He ordered Petra to dig out a garage in the hillside that he could work out of. Then, he started looking for ways to erase the incident from Petra''s memory.

 Chapter 41: Same Shit, Different Day

    After two weeks, the apple seedling died.


    Nick had no idea what happened. The previous day it had looked fine, if a little pale. All he could think was that Petra had somehow poisoned it accidentally. Who knows what kind of radiation and crap Petra and the guys put out. Maybe this environment is killing me too, just more slowly.


    Shut up, depression.


    It was hard not to feel despair, though. For some reason, that little baby apple tree meant a lot to him, and to wake up and find it a moldy mess was heartbreaking. Petra already had a couple of dozen more experiments running, attempting to duplicate whatever fluke had enabled the first seed to sprout.


    Petra did something odd that day¡ªshe brought him lunch. Usually, Nick spent a few minutes staring at his few food options before picking something. But today, Petra wanted him to have the chicken soup, and a specific amount of potato chips. When he tried to ask why, Petra said something about gathering resources that Nick couldn''t follow.


    Petra chose his dinner that day as well, and asked him to stop when he went for a snack. ¡°How long are you going to keep doing this, Petra?¡±


    ¡°Three days.¡±


    ¡°Why three days?¡±


    ¡°Resource acquisition finished in three days.¡±


    Nick eventually got a suspicion of what was going on. I think Petra used my shit as fertilizer for the seedlings, and wants me to produce exactly the same shit again for the next experiments. So I have to eat exactly the same things for three days. Nick sighed, and decided that he would go along with it. It wasn''t as if he had a better idea.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    When he got bored enough, he sat down to more science lessons from Petra. Every so often, the alien device would ask him some complicated chemistry or biology question, and he usually would have no idea how to answer. The chemistry felt easier than the biology. Biology was a pain.


    He figured out the diagrams Petra was making to indicate cells, but he had no idea why Petra kept drawing so many cells, all different. He guessed that maybe they were bone cells and skin cells and stuff different like that, but when he asked where the cells were coming from, Petra said that they all were in his stomach.


    He was also learning a lot of anatomy, which was actually kind of cool and interesting. He didn''t have words for most things, so Petra taught him labels in the alien language. They were actually fairly easy to learn; similar things had similar names. It was wild to learn what all the squishy organs did.


    Or maybe I''m just that starved for entertainment, Nick mused. Eh, if it''s not broke, don''t fix it.


    So, Nick assembled parts of the Rockhunter, learned alien biology words, and ate as directed for the next few days. As always, he spent a lot of time going through Petra''s menus looking for cool stuff to build. Once he knew that the Rockhunter had some kind of short-range communications, he found the same item as a standalone unit and ordered one.


    When Petra reported it as finished, he checked it out. It actually was in three pieces that fit together intuitively. Nick had had a lot of time to think about this, so before turning it on, he tried to get some more answers out of Petra.


    ¡°Hey, Petra.¡±


    ¡°Hey, Nick.¡±


    ¡°If I turn this on, will others be able to detect it?¡±


    ¡°Define ''detect''.¡±


    ¡°See, hear, touch, smell, taste, get information.¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°No? No what?¡±


    ¡°No, sir.¡±


    Nick rolled his eyes. ¡°That''s not what I meant. Um, Petra error. What question did you answer with ''no''?¡±


    It took a few more rounds and a little bit of gnashing teeth before they finished running around each other in verbal circles. ¡°So, if I turn this on, and I do not transmit, no one will detect this.¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Good.¡± Nick switched on the communicator.

 Chapter 42: What If It Works?

    Nothing happened.


    Well, that was anticlimactic. Nick frowned, waiting. Nothing continued to happen.


    There''s got to be a trick to turning it on. Maybe I need to pick a channel or frequency or something. Nick looked at the controls. ¡°Petra? Can I have a tutorial on using the communicator?¡±


    ¡°Tutorial not available.¡±


    ¡°Seriously?¡±


    ¡°Seriously.¡± Petra was good at parroting back like that.


    Nick sighed, and thought about how to coax the information he needed out of the literal-minded alien rock. ¡°Petra, how many transmissions are we picking up right now?¡±


    ¡°Zero.¡±


    ¡°How many transmissions can I pick up right now?¡±


    ¡°All.¡±


    Nick rolled his eyes and tried again. ¡°Petra, I am going to change all the settings on the communicator. When I do, how many transmissions will I pick up then?¡±


    ¡°All.¡±


    He suppressed a groan. Come on, think, Nick. He mulled it over for a minute or two, then got another idea. ¡°Petra?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Nick?¡±


    ¡°Which control should I adjust to pick up a transmission?¡±


    ¡°Clock.¡±


    Clock? Why would resetting the clock¡ªoh. Nick laughed silently. She means ¡°wait.¡± Nobody''s transmitting right now.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    ¡°You mean I need to wait.¡±


    ¡°Define ''wait''?¡±


    ¡°Let time pass.¡±


    ¡°I do not understand, Nick.¡±


    ¡°Increase my age.¡±


    ¡°Understood. Correct.¡±


    ¡°All right. Petra, let me know as soon as we start picking up a signal from someone else.¡±


    ¡°Exceptions?¡±


    ¡°None.¡± It had taken a while, but Nick had taught Petra not to wake him up for certain reports. He didn''t want to sleep through a signal from potential rescuers, though.


    Nick lay down for a minute, thinking. I''ve got a possibility of being rescued, or at least contacting somebody. But the range on this thing is like, the size of BigBall or so. So unless someone lands a spaceship on this planet, I won''t be able to hear them.


    Still, it''s hope.


    * *


    It was quite a while later before Nick realized a problem. Uh oh. Suppose I do get someone on the radio. How am I going to talk to them? How do I explain that I need a ride home?


    Petra also made a different problem clear by making requests that fighting monsters and traps get made as a high priority. What if I call people and they''re hostile? Maybe I should listen to Petra here.


    Nick checked on how much of Petra''s manufacturing time would be used on the defenses, and decided to set it at 25% of production. Petra immediately sealed off two rooms that were going to become traps, presumably so that he wouldn''t wander in there and get killed.


    Petra, you might be taking this dungeon game metaphor a little more literally than your creators would have wanted.Nick felt a bit concerned, but there wasn''t much he could do about it, so he mentally shrugged and moved on.


    He tried to brainstorm. All right, suppose I call aliens and they are hostile. Why are they hostile? Most obvious, they want to kill me and take my stuff, particularly Petra. Only, they might not even know I have Petra. I don''t know how tech works out there in the galaxy. Or money, for that matter. Do they even take stuff like gold? Can I pay them off?


    For that matter, suppose they''re not hostile, but they don''t want to rescue me for free. What can I offer them? Is there any element that''s valuable to them? Or something Petra can make? Petra herself has got to be incredibly valuable, but I''m not trading Petra away for anything. I wouldn''t put it past Petra to be able to build me a starship and fly me home eventually.


    Nick tried to figure out how to ask Petra about money. He poked through Argoroth Dragon Hunters 9 and looked at the gold counter, then thought about trying to explain it to Petra. He groaned and put his hands over his face.


    How do I explain economics to an alien rock that can literally make anything it wants?

 Chapter 43: Progress

    More days passed. Petra reported another apple seedling had sprouted, and Nick tried not to get his hopes up. He kept working on Rockhunter, and gave himself a day off to relax when he reached the milestone of 300 pieces assembled. It''s almost starting to look like a car. Well, a piece of earth-moving equipment more like, but still.


    Nick was amused when Petra extruded an almost exact replica of the back seat of the Ford Explorer as one of the pieces, complete with seat belt. I guess she figures this is what I like in a transport. Makes sense. Instead of screws or welds, of course, it had those weird hexagonal fasteners attaching it to the rest of Rockhunter.


    Honestly, I am getting totally spoiled with these tools. There is no way I am going back to Earth without a complete set.


    He kept up his language lessons with Petra. He was hoping that whatever language Petra was slowly teaching him was some sort of Galactic Standard and he wouldn''t have to learn an entirely different language if and when he picked up a transmission from someone. When he consulted the status displays, it turned out that Petra had 36% command of English, and Nick had 1% command of...alienese. He couldn''t pronounce the name of the alien language; it had some weird clicking, huffing and slapping sounds in it. The symbols were pretty straightforward though.


    Nick grew tense when the apple seedling hit two weeks old. This is when the other one died. He couldn''t bear to look; he avoided looking at the video feed for two whole days before sneaking a peek. It was still alive, and getting a tiny bit taller. Nick drank in the sight of the green shoot and dreamt about having a whole orchard of apple trees. I don''t suppose Petra could reverse engineer grass...?If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Petra printed out parts for the piece of Rockhunter that was actually going to do the searching for materials. Nick asked whether he could turn it on separately before installing it, and Petra walked him through the steps. When he activated it, the results were dramatic.


    The 3D map of Bare Hill got a lot deeper and a lot more detailed. There was actually a small amount of element 53 almost 70 meters directly below Petra. It wasn''t a big deposit, but it was good to know of a reserve in case they ever got short. There was some more mercury in a couple of places, not that Nick wanted any, but Petra used it in small amounts.


    There didn''t seem to be any delay at all before this appeared. That means I could be driving along and scanning underground for materials basically nonstop. This is huge. Nick grinned. I think shortages are soon to be a thing of the past.


    Nick brought the pieces to the ¡°garage¡±, where Rockhunter was currently under assembly, and installed the scanner properly. That''s four more pieces down. Getting there.


    Nick checked on the production schedule. Petra was up to fifty warbot ¡°monsters¡± for defense, and four trapped rooms. The queue had another two traps and thirty warbots in it. Meanwhile the remaining pieces of Rockhunter were going to take another three weeks or so.


    As far as personal items went, Petra could now produce all of the food that Nick had preserved from the groceries that were in the car originally. Petra could even make apples directly, that were all absolutely identical to the one he had fed it.


    Nick took another look at the seedling. It was still growing, and looked a light but healthy green. Come on, little guy. You can do it.

 Chapter 44: Dosage

    I''m gonna die here.


    Nick immediately thought of fighting his depression, but this time he couldn''t work up the energy. He vaguely realized that that was a bad sign, but he just didn''t care.


    I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to see Earth again. I want to see a nice round moon, and a sun that isn''t trying to kill me. I want to walk on grass. I want to sit under a tree. I want...


    Nick broke down, and didn''t think anything else for a while. There was no one to hear, no one to see. Nick lost all track of how much time he spent lying on the floor, just feeling how sad he was. He was lonely, and tired, and bored, and depressed, and he wanted to see people again.


    I''m gonna die out here.


    ¡°Nick?¡± Petra called. He didn''t bother to respond. It''s just her parroting something I set up earlier. She can run things just fine, better than I can. I don''t know what use I am, really.


    ¡°Nick?¡± Petra repeated. He ignored her.


    ¡°Nick? Query, sleep mode?¡±


    ¡°Yes. I''m asleep. Go away.¡±


    ¡°Incorrect.¡±


    What kind of alien rock logic is that? Nick wondered in faint exasperation.


    ¡°Nick, I detect no damage. Your health is at 100%.¡±


    ¡°Yay,¡± Nick mock cheered in a groan. Just go away and let me die.


    ¡°Query, Nick takes undetected damage?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Nick has a debuff?¡±


    Nick gave a very small laugh at that. ¡°Yeah, you could say that.¡±


    ¡°Petra casts Heal.¡±


    ¡°This isn''t something the med bot can fix, Petra.¡± Regardless, the med bot came trundling over. Nick felt a vague apprehension wondering what Petra was going to try to do to him.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    ¡°Hello! I am Healy, your personal health-care companion.¡±


    I should never have told Petra about that movie, Nick groaned.


    ¡°Please show the debuff on the map.¡±


    Nick opened one eye, curious despite himself. Medbot was holding a display, currently showing a diagram of Nick''s body, like the one on his status page, but even more detailed. It kept slowly moving the display closer and closer to his face until he reached up and tapped the image of his brain.


    A suspicion crossed his mind. ¡°Petra, did I take my pills today?¡±


    ¡°Pills were made at 7:56 AM today.¡± Nick had Petra print out his medication fresh every day, and he always caught each pill in his hand and swallowed it at once. If Petra printed it, that meant that he took it.


    ¡°Oh. So that''s not it.¡±


    ¡°Come again?¡± Nick had taught Petra that as another way to say, ¡°I do not understand.¡±


    He thought wearily about how to explain in words Petra could understand. ¡°Pills heal debuff.¡±


    ¡°Petra make more pills?¡±


    ¡°No. That''s dangerous. Too many pills decrease health.¡±


    ¡°Petra make small pills.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Petra make small pills.¡±


    ¡°No, I heard¡ªnever mind...¡± Nick closed his eyes and he could hear Medbot trundle away. Thank you. Leave me in peace.


    It was not to be. Medbot returned in a few minutes, offering a cup of water, and a small bowl. Heaving a sigh, Nick sat up enough to drink some water, and peered into the bowl.


    Petra had manufactured a great many tiny med pills. Vaguely curious, Nick picked one up and held it carefully between his fingertips. ¡°Petra. My pills are 150 milligrams. How many milligrams is this?¡±


    ¡°Five milligrams.¡±


    Nick sat and stared at the mini-pills for a while, debating with himself. I''m not supposed to change my dosage without approval of my psychopharmacologist. I know too much of this stuff can cause heart problems and seizures and shit like that.


    On the other hand, five milligrams is really fucking tiny. It probably wouldn''t kill me to take one of these as extra. And if I do it, Petra will shut up and leave me alone for a while.


    Sighing, Nick picked up his cup and took one of the tiny pills. Then he lay back down. He asked for his phone, and Petra had a bot fetch it for him so he didn''t have to move. Nick started playing the games on his phone to try to make time pass.


    Way too many solitaire games later, Nick checked his status. His heart rate was normal, possibly even low. Fuck it. Nick took one more tiny pill, washed it down with water, and switched to a different game.


    An hour later, he summoned enough energy to get in bed properly. He slept fitfully for most of an Earth night. Whenever he woke, he checked his status, then went back to sleep.


    In the morning, Nick took his regular dose, and then took three tiny pills as well. An hour later, his mood was definitely slightly better. He had enough energy to notice, and to wonder how much more he should take. I guess I''ll stay at this dosage for a while and make sure I''m not having seizures or anything.


    He sighed. ¡°Good job, Petra,¡± he reluctantly told the alien device.

 Chapter 45: Communication

    Nick was woken by his phone alarm. Am I late for work? Nick yawned hugely, and as his brain came back online, he remembered where he was, and realized that it was not actually his phone, but rather Petra waking him up.


    ¡°Petra? What''s up?¡±


    ¡°You have a message.¡±


    Nick squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°You have a message.¡±


    Abruptly Nick was wide awake. ¡°Right now? Record it! And let me hear!¡±


    ¡°Recording. Not understood.¡±


    ¡°Play the message. Open message.¡±


    There was a crackling sound and a hiss of static. Nick watched the nearest display but apparently the signal was audio only. Then he heard a voice.


    Nick choked up. It was the first living, intelligent voice he had heard since arriving on BigBall. He couldn''t understand a word of what they were saying, but it was a short message, repeated several times.


    "Petra, can you translate any of the message into English?"


    "No."


    ¡°Can you tell where the message is coming from?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    Nick waited a beat, then sighed. ¡°Where is the message coming from?¡±


    Petra responded in alienese.


    Nick had to go over facts like ''there are 360o in a circle'' and ''start at north and go east'' before he could ask the question again. ¡°Where is the message coming from?¡±


    ¡°114 degrees.¡±This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    ¡°How far away is the source?¡±


    ¡°Unknown.¡±


    The signal cut out.


    ¡°Petra, did they stop transmitting?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Shit.¡±


    ¡°Bathroom is available.¡±


    Nick shook his head. Sometimes it seemed as if Petra forgot things he had taught her, and then recalled them again later. He had no idea why it happened, but it did, often enough to be annoying.


    There was another week of work before Rockhunter would be ready. Nick told Petra to shift priority to finishing the parts for Rockhunter before building any more defenses. I want to get out there and see if I can find them. I hope they weren''t just visiting briefly, and don''t take off before I get there.


    Do I want to respond? Nick thought about it. No. If they call back, I should respond, maybe, but not after they stopped transmitting. They might have turned their radio off. Besides, I''m not sure I want to give away Petra''s location yet.


    ¡°Petra, now that we have a transmission, can we improve reception in case they call again?¡±


    ¡°Not understood.¡±


    Nick drummed his fingers on his thigh, thinking. ¡°Petra, build another short-range communicator. Do it now.¡± Maybe he could teach Petra about triangulating. Well, the idea anyway. He''d want Petra to do the actual math.


    While that was cooking, he went back to Rockhunter and took another look at a tricky bit of the assembly. What kind of crazy space warp am I supposed to use to get that in there, again? Maybe that''s what that ¡°oozlay¡± tool is for...


    The apple seedling was continuing to grow, and Petra reported that two more seedlings had sprouted. Nick sat and stared at the video for a long time. Watching grass grow is actually kind of exciting when it is the first bit of green life on the entire planet. He continued to be paranoid and avoided going in there. When they''re big and sturdy, and won''t die if I breathe on them wrong.


    Nick wondered why he hadn''t gotten sick with any space bugs. Was BigBall always lifeless? But, where did the oxygen come from? Or was this a living world, and the Death Star has sterilized everything?


    Then again, maybe I did get sick with a space bug, only I fought it off.


    The next day, the second communicator was ready. Will waited for nightfall, then carried it slightly west of south, which ended up being downhill, unsurprisingly. He traveled for a couple of hours, then set it up on a boulder and turned it on. Then he checked the network on Petra''s display he''d brought along. The new entry was listed as Communicator #3.


    ¡°Petra, can you control Communicator #3 from home base...from your dungeon?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Good. Set it to listen for more transmissions like the one we already received.¡±


    After that, he hurried back home. It took longer going uphill, and he didn''t want to be caught outside when the Death Star rose. Once he was safely underground, he cleaned up, had a meal and relaxed.


    Not a bad day.

 Chapter 46: Second Call

    Three more days until Rockhunter was finished. Or at least, until the last pieces were printed. Nick wasn''t sure he wasn''t going to hit a snag on the final assembly; there were still a few details in the blueprints that baffled him.


    The seedlings were continuing to grow. Nick took some time to just sit and stare at them every day. The tiniest hint of green¡ªfor some reason, he needed to see it. Proof that I am not the only living thing on Planet BigBall.


    Another message came in while Nick was swimming. There was a waterproof display that Nick kept by the side of the pool, so he heard the alert when he paused to tread water, and immediately made his way over to the pad. ¡°Petra, is it the same source?¡±


    ¡°Not understood.¡±


    Nick rephrased half a dozen ways before he got his question across. The reply, translated from Petra-speak, amounted to ¡°no reason not to think so.¡±


    ¡°Where is the source?¡±


    ¡°114 degrees.¡±


    ¡°How far away is the source?¡±


    ¡°60,432,817 centimeters.¡± On the display, the last four digits were all bright green. So, about 600 kilometers, very roughly 300 miles I think? Nick had gotten a lot of practice converting units, but he didn''t know how many meters were in a mile and had to ballpark guess at it.


    Rockhunter has a cruising speed of about 50 mph, and a top speed about twice that. I could get there in three hours if I push it, once the car is finished. Nick had checked that Rockhunter would give him adequate protection from the Death Star, though it wouldn''t be comfortable without changes to the design and Nick wasn''t willing to start over at this point.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    Nick eyed the clock and frowned. The Death Star had set about ninety minutes earlier. ¡°Petra, time between first transmission and closest sunset?¡±


    ¡°84 minutes, 12 seconds to 87 minutes, 44 seconds.¡±


    ¡°Time now since sunset today?¡±


    ¡°85 minutes, 22 seconds.¡±


    They''re transmitting at the same time of BigBall''s day. Nick wasn''t sure what to do with that information, since Petra was already listening for transmissions all the time, but it seemed important.


    ¡°How many BigBall days since the last message?¡±


    ¡°6.9978 BigBall days.¡±


    So not every day. Seven days apart. There might be another transmission seven days from now. Three or four regular days. I wonder if I can get Rockhunter ready in time for that.


    Nick would have a lot more options once the vehicle was ready. He could explore a lot more territory quickly, and find mineral deposits of whatever was missing from his lists of ingredients for things he wanted to build. And he could check out the source of that signal.


    Is it smart to just go up there and knock? Maybe I should transmit first. Yeah, from somewhere nearby so I don''t give away the dungeon''s location.


    ¡°Petra, can you decrease the power of our transmitter?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Can you decrease the range of our transmitter?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Good.¡± He didn''t want to let the whole planet know he was around, yet. He was acutely aware that he didn''t have any weapons, and if the aliens were hostile, his only hope would be to get back to Rockhunter and run like hell. He desperately hoped that they were friendly, but he wasn''t deluding himself about his chances.


    First contact, dude. There should be like a zillion scientists and people figuring out how to do this. All I''ve got is me, and a rock that can''t really speak either of our languages.


    Friendly or hostile? That was the big question.


    Nick went back to studying the oozlay tool, so he could put the damned pieces together that absolutely should not fit where they were supposed to go...


    I don''t know, man, I just work here.

 Chapter 47: Blind Spot

    ¡°Oh, for fuck''s sake, what did I do?¡± Nick yelled.


    For the past half hour at least, he had been trying to attach one of the last pieces of Rockhunter. He could not figure out how it was supposed to go. Worse, he had somehow, accidentally, managed to secure one of the four impossible fasteners, and he still couldn''t figure out what he had done to manage that. So it was stuck. He probably could disconnect it again, but he was reluctant.


    ¡°Petra, show me the oozlay tool tutorial again, please.¡± Petra knew all the words he had just used, and called up the video he had already watched a dozen times or more. Nick squinted, and it didn''t make any more sense than the other times.


    He wasted quite a few minutes arguing with Petra, trying to coax her into giving him the simplest example possible of a use of the oozlay. He just could not get it across for some reason. He squinted, then squeezed his eyes shut a moment. Maybe I can''t figure it out because I''m tired. Well, I couldn''t figure it out earlier when I wasn''t tired, but being tired certainly isn''t going to help. Nick turned in.


    He couldn''t sleep, though. I''m so close to finished. It was maddening. Nick got up again and went back to fighting with the parts and tools. He got more and more annoyed. Finally he lost his temper and hit the part with the side of his fist. With a clunk, the piece fell off.


    Well, shit, I broke it. Nick inspected the part, but couldn''t find any damage, though. The connectors still looked pristine despite the rough handling. So what the hell made it detach? I thought you had to use the oozlay to attach it or detach it.Nick stared off into space for a moment, and just let his mind play with it a moment. What kind of...?If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Wait a minute.


    ¡°Petra, play the oozlay tool tutorial again.¡± Nick watched the symbolic alien doing the magic assembly again, but this time he turned the sound up high. There was an intermittent, annoying, warbling, droning sound that Nick had dismissed as irrelevant. He figured it was aliens humming or farting or burping or something, or maybe the alien version of a dying refrigerator in his old apartment that had discovered a second career as an amateur synthesizer late in life.


    What if the sound is important? Vibration. I hit it and made it vibrate. Whistle while you work? It can''t be that. Can it? I''ve tried everything else.


    Ten minutes of rephrasing requests later, Petra was ready to play a set of sound clips. Nick felt stupid as he prepared to make another attempt at attaching the part. This is like playing a sound recording of a hammer next to a nail and expecting the nail to get driven in. Sure enough, nothing happened differently.


    Damn it. Nick had been sure he was on the right track. He watched the video a few more times, listening carefully. The sound of a nail going in won''t make a nail go in. You have to actually do the thing that makes the sound...


    Nick picked up the oozlay and turned it over in his hands, inspecting it from every angle. What have I missed? There''s no noise making control. It hasn''t made a sound any time I...


    No. No. Dear God, let me not be this fucking stupid.


    ¡°Petra. Turn the oozlay tool on.¡±


    The oozlay began to hum.


    Five minutes later, when Nick paused for breath, Petra reported, as if she were proud of herself, ¡°I have learned eight new profanities. English language at 34%.¡±


    Nick didn''t know whether to laugh or cry. He settled for a tense laugh, and went back to work. Within ten minutes, he had finished attaching the component to Rockhunter, and moved on to the last piece. He still didn''t know how the damned tool worked, but now it did work. I guess those other parts went together all right even with the oozlay powered down, but these...screw it. I just work here.


    Nick made a last attachment, and stepped back.


    Rockhunter was complete.

 Chapter 48: On Their Way

    ¡°Petra, how long until sunset?¡±


    ¡°Three hours, 22 minutes.¡±


    The aliens are going to transmit again, hopefully, in about five hours. Nick wanted to be elsewhere in Rockhunter for first contact, with an option of visiting. He loaded up with food, water, a med bot, a war bot, a good display and Petra herself. At the last minute, he also gathered up some hexagonal ingots of different elements and loaded them as well. Who knows, maybe they will want to trade for something?


    Time to take my new ride out for a spin.


    ¡°Petra, can you control the dungeon from Rockhunter?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Good. All right, let''s do this.¡±


    Nick climbed in and closed the door behind him. It was pitch dark inside, but he pulled a lamp out of his pocket and turned it on. He had Petra open the ¡°garage door¡±, settled himself in the chair, and called up the controls. They still looked like a video game, which always amused him. Rockhunter didn''t actually have windows, so he might as well be in a gaming pod back home. It was a little claustrophobic, but he reminded himself that he had checked with Petra that the vehicle would protect him from the environment, including temperature and air quality.


    Holding his breath, he nudged the controls to move Rockhunter out of the garage. The ride was almost completely smooth¡ªnot surprising since Petra used levitation instead of wheels. Built in cameras gave him good visibility in any direction, including up and down. Petra was kind of democratic when it came to orientation, Nick had learned from some of his lessons.


    He switched on the elements scanner, the comm system, and the mapping function. All right, let''s get this show on the road. He aimed at a heading of 114 degrees, and moved the speed control forward a little.


    The acceleration was more than he expected but still reasonable. Glad I didn''t floor it. Rockhunter has pretty good pickup. He watched with interest as the map started to fill in, displaying in three dimensions. The resources were getting detected and labeled at high speed, too.


    Nick increased the speed slowly, bit by bit. ¡°Petra, any problems?¡±


    ¡°I don''t understand that, Nick.¡±


    He sighed.


    As they traveled, Nick kept modifying the display, subtracting out materials that were common in Bare Hill, and putting a special alert out for certain elements, including 90 and 92. He explained to Petra that he wanted to be notified if they passed a deposit of anything that they didn''t have a supply of. That done, he made sure Petra was recording everything, and settled himself to enjoy the ride.


    Petra''s dungeon was in a fairly mountainous region. He had been calling them hills, but they were on the big side for that. Huh. I wonder what the difference is between a mountain and a hill? How tall do you have to be, to be called a mountain? Man, I have like five bajillion questions for the search engine when I get back.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    Nick could only imagine what might have happened if he had had a dictionary and a science book downloaded to his e-reader. I bet Petra would understand almost all of English. I''d just have to explain things like...cats, and bananas, and other things she''s never seen. And maybe that periodic table wouldn''t look so damned weird. I don''t know how it''s supposed to look, but I know it''s not supposed to look like Petra''s. We don''t draw things in spirals on Earth.


    Hills or mountains, there were a lot of them. Rockhunter stayed slightly above the ground; apparently it couldn''t actually fly. So he got treated to the feel of a roller-coaster as they zipped up and down. He felt a little bit of g-forces on some of those swoops.


    Something caught his eye on the scanner. He''d almost missed it, but slowed the vehicle and brought it around. Whatever it was, was sticking out of the ground, kind of like trees. In fact, those almost look...like...walls.


    Nick''s throat felt dry. As he approached, it became obvious that he had found ruins. Holy shit. BigBall was inhabited after all.


    Petra''s scanner showed that the buildings were made mostly of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. But that could mean almost anything, Nick knew from brutal chemistry lessons with Petra. It could be a fucking gingerbread house and it would show up like that. But I bet wood is made of those...


    Nick couldn''t get out to inspect the ruins in person because the Death Star was still up and would be for a while. He had Petra note the location, and then went back to his old heading, feeling significantly more grim.


    If those were wood houses, they probably didn''t have spaceships. And if they were native here, and everywhere is getting as bleached as Bare Hill...these people are dead or dying.


    So, is the transmission coming from the natives? Or is someone else visiting BigBall?


    Nick wanted to ask Petra how fancy a technology you would need to build whatever was transmitting, but didn''t know how to get that across. He looked at the ingredients list for Petra''s communicator, and it was fairly long. But Petra''s comm was probably super-advanced.


    Nick went back to the communications menu and started looking for the simplest models he could find. He spent a while swiping through options, then wised up and asked Petra to sort them in increasing order of ingredients list. The start of the list had items with only three elements, including copper.


    Yeah, but I don''t know what kind of signal this is. Are we talking about AM radio or hyperspace communicators or what?


    ¡°Petra, in this order, find me the first three communicators capable of generating the transmissions we received.¡± He was actually pretty proud of himself for thinking of that, and felt even better when it worked.


    The ingredients lists were very short. They might actually be using radio. Wild that I don''t even know what kind of signal I''m getting.


    Nick''s imagination started to run wild. He wasn''t sure when radio was invented but he thought it was somewhere around 1900 or so. They could be like Wild West level. Or World War 2. Or the same as Earth. Or even more advanced, maybe.


    He thought back to the day he arrived, and all those seemingly random portals. It wouldn''t be a good escape system if it opened onto dead planets. If there wasn''t any air on the other side, a portal would be like a hurricane sucking your atmosphere through.


    Were all those portals opening onto habitable worlds? Or inhabited ones? Nick thought about what he had seen of BigBall. I think their catalog of planets needs an update.


    Nick wondered what he would find at his destination. Visitors? Or natives? Rescue?


    Or people who need rescuing?

 Chapter 49: Ghost Town

    Petra gave him two alerts in the next few hours. The first was for a small deposit of half a dozen elements in the low 60s. If Nick wasn''t on a time limit he would have gone to dig those up right away.


    The second alert was for a cluster of a bunch of elements around 90, mostly element 92. That was a fairly large deposit, but it was pretty spread out. He''d have to dig out a lot of that mountain to get enough to use. Still, an important bottleneck was going to get relieved soon. This was already a worthwhile trip.


    Nick passed more and more ruins, things that looked like entire towns. The Death Star was setting, so he changed course and headed slowly down what looked like the main road of one of the towns. It had been paved with cobblestones. He wasn''t sure whether that meant ancient technology or just a rural area that couldn''t afford asphalt.


    Then again, doesn''t asphalt get soft when you heat it up a lot? Nick wondered whether asphalt could turn liquid and run off somewhere. Maybe these were paved roads and this is the layer that can survive the Death Star.


    He looked around with the cameras, and as soon as the shadow of the mountain to the west covered the ruins, Nick took a deep breath and got out to look around. I''m really taking my chances with germs, here. He carried Petra and the display tablet with him, and had Petra eat and save bits of the first broken wall he came to. I''ll find out what it''s made out of later, maybe.


    He could make out the remains of half a dozen buildings. Each one had had five sides instead of four. They were shaped like a home plate, so apparently these aliens liked right angles too. The pointed bits all faced the road. Nick went through an entryway with some debris below it that probably used to be the door. Standing in the middle of the one room building, he asked Petra for a scan.


    Iron and elements 47 and 79 were the surprises. He tracked down the iron to small bits in the walls, and a little of Petra eating stuff away soon revealed something familiar. He took one as a souvenir. I guess a nail is a nail, the whole universe over. He imagined seeing it in a museum on Earth someday, with a little card saying ¡°the first crafted work discovered of the natives of Planet BigBall.¡±


    He moved to the back. The thing there made of stone looked suspiciously like a fireplace and broken chimney. This place really has the feel of a ghost town in the Wild West. Nick shuddered. In the 1800s, we wouldn''t have stood a chance if the Sun had turned into a Death Star.


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    The deposit of elements 47 and 79 was small, concentrated, and under a pile of the big rocks that had fallen off the maybe chimney. Nick shaved pieces off the rocks until he could move them without straining too hard, which took him maybe fifteen minutes. There was something an awful lot like wood underneath, only the grain looked really weird, with zigzags interrupting the lines. Nick took another sample and cut through it to find the deposit.


    What...the hell...is that?


    There was a bag under the floor, but Nick had no idea what it was made out of. For some reason it creeped him out. It was an animal hide of some sort. Are those scales...or feathers? He opened the bag gingerly and peeked inside.


    Deposit is the right word for it, I guess. The bag was full of gold and silver coins. Nick pulled out one of each and examined them in the fading light. They were flat and round. The shape probably just made sense if you were going to carry them around a lot. There were markings on the coins, but Nick had no hope of reading them. He couldn''t even figure out what the picture in the middle was supposed to be.


    Nobody came back for their money because it was buried under big rocks and they didn''t have the time or the strength to dig it out. Or maybe, the owner just died. Wait...


    Nick looked around, then quickly searched in and around the other buildings. There weren''t any bodies. No skeletons or anything. Maybe it really was a ghost town, everybody left instead of dying here.


    Behind three of the buildings was a pit, maybe twenty feet across and four feet deep, in a bowl shape. The edge was lined with stones, and it had a solid look to it. Some of the stones were carved. He had no idea what it was for, so Nick just took pictures of everything and got back into Rockhunter.


    An hour later, he steered farther south. He didn''t want to point the way to Petra''s dungeon like an arrow. He would approach the source of the transmission from the side.


    A bit nervous, Nick checked a few times that Rockhunter''s transmitter was turned down low enough that it wouldn''t be picked up even from the dungeon. He fidgeted with a gold coin while he waited for the hoped-for third transmission.


    Nails. Coins. Radio, maybe. Are the aliens just like us, but with pointier houses? And creepy fucking creatures they skin for leather?


    ¡°You have a message.¡±


    Nick yelled a moment in surprise. He had been in almost total silence for maybe an hour, and Petra suddenly speaking up spiked his heart rate for a few moments.


    ¡°A message or a call?¡±


    ¡°...Yes.¡±


    Nick''s jaw dropped. Did Petra just make a joke? Nah. It must have just been some weird parroting thing. My own sarcasm biting me in the ass.


    ¡°Accept the call.¡±


    Showtime.

 Chapter 50 Words and Music

    The alien voice was back. Weird sounds came from the speakers. ¡°Petra, put the location of the source on the map.¡± Petra did so, and the source looked like it was on the other side of a hill north of their current location. Nick started them moving in that direction. Then he waited for a pause in the alien voice, and hit the control to transmit.


    ¡°Hello. Hello. I am Nick. I come in peace. Hello.¡±


    The voice on the other end stayed quiet for several moments, then repeated a phrase a few times, then fell silent.


    Nick hit transmit again. ¡°Hello. I am Nick. I do not speak your language.¡±


    More incomprehensible alien talk.


    Nick sighed. This isn''t going to work. Scientists would be doing shit with numbers and a universal language. What languages do I speak? A little Spanish. That won''t help. How do I tell them I''m friendly?


    Nick got a wild idea. He hit transmit, and started whistling, as clearly as he could. First, he whistled a scale, nice and slow, and did it again. ¡°Music. Scale.¡± What now? Something really simple. Hey, what about that ding-ding-dong song for kids? For lack of a better idea, Nick whistled the tune that went with, ¡°Are you sleeping, are you sleeping, brother John? Brother John?¡±


    The alien said something brief, then fell quiet. Nick tried to imitate it, cleared his throat and tried again. The alien repeated themselves a couple more times as Nick tried to pronounce it. Finally, he sighed and said, ¡°Sorry, guys. I''m not good at your language. This is a scale.¡± He whistled one again, and then descending. ¡°This is music.¡± He started whistling again, this time a catchy oldie with nonsense words like ¡°Oh blah me, Oh blah you, Oh blah me, yeah!¡± or something like that. He slapped his thigh in accompaniment.


    Stolen story; please report.


    At least this way I don''t have to remember the lyrics.


    When he finished the song, he said, ¡°Song. Music. That was one song. The other one was another song. Uh...¡± Nick blew air out his cheeks, temporarily stumped. What did Petra do when she tried to learn more English? She started with numbers.


    ¡°Okay, guys, try this. One.¡± He slapped his leg once. ¡°Two.¡± He slapped it twice. ¡°Three. Four. Five.¡± He slapped the number of times for the number he was saying. Then, he did the whole thing a couple more times, and waited for a response.


    ¡°Wa.¡± Thud. ¡°Oo.¡± Thud Thud. ¡°Ee.¡± Thud Thud Thud. ¡°Ohwa.¡± Four thuds.


    ¡°Yes!¡± Nick yelled, glad a moment later that he wasn''t transmitting right then. He hit transmit. ¡°Yes. Good. One...two... three.¡± Nick spoke slowly and distinctly.


    ¡°Wa...oo...fee.¡± There was a pause. ¡°Flargkh. Zozo. Koog.¡±


    ¡°Flarg. Zozo, Koog.¡± Nick stopped transmitting. ¡°Petra, do you understand that language yet?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Guess we aren''t in a sci-fi show, then.¡± He hit transmit. ¡°One is Flarg. Two is Zozo. Three is Koog.¡± He clapped the appropriate number of times.


    ¡°Izzzz...¡± There was a pause. ¡°Oo...oo...izzz...Ohwa.¡±


    ¡°Holy shit. Yes. Yes! Two...and...two...is...four. One...and...one...is...two. One and two is three.¡±


    ¡°Oo...ann...fee...izzz...fi.¡±


    The aliens said several words. Nick had no clue what they meant. He was impressed with these guys, though. He wouldn''t have thought of a way to teach ¡°is¡± on purpose, but they picked it up anyway.


    He took a look at the camera displays and blinked. ¡°You guys have a radio tower! I see it!¡±


    The aliens started responding rapidly in their language. Nick asked, ¡°Petra, why is their transmission a lot louder?¡± He had to try a couple more ways to get his question across.


    ¡°Centimeters are less.¡±


    ¡°Wait, does that mean our transmission is louder, too?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    They might be realizing how close I am. Sheesh, I hope that''s not the sound of aliens panicking or threatening.


    They were gliding down one hill, and the radio tower was at the top of the next hill. As they reached the bottom of the valley between and started up the slope, the speakers suddenly broke into music from Argoroth Dragon Hunters 9, surprising the hell out of Nick. Petra spoke up with a sound clip from the game.


    ¡°Congratulations, Hunter! You have discovered a dungeon! Do you wish to enter?¡±

 Chapter 51 First Contact

    Nick brought Rockhunter to a halt and stared at Petra''s little game animation for a moment, then switched to the resource scan they had been doing all along. Iron was present in the hill ahead, in the shape of bars, columns, and a few other things. Blinking, Nick turned off the filters that were preventing Petra from showing the most common elements. Most of the screen filled up...but there were gaps, containing oxygen and probably nitrogen? Whatever element 7 was.


    They''ve dug out a tunnel system just like Petra did. They''re hiding underground from the Death Star, the same as me.


    Nick searched for the entrance, and it took him a minute of fumbling with the scanner to figure it out. He wished he had brought the 3D display along. Once he had found what he was looking for, he started Rockhunter up the slope again, slowly, heading for the access to the tunnels. He started getting very nervous.


    Oh, man, do not fuck this up, do not fuck this up... He watched the cameras, which were not showing as much as he would like in the starlight. Rudolph was below the horizon, so it was dimmer than usual outside, with nothing bright enough to cast shadows.


    ¡°Distance to the entrance?¡±


    ¡°10,450 centimeters and less.¡± ''And counting'', she means.


    How close should I get? Nick wondered. He hit the transmission control. ¡°Hello. This is Nick. I am close to you now. Where should I stop?¡± He knew that the aliens wouldn''t understand him, but hoped they would get from his tone of voice that he was not hostile and was asking questions.


    He caught movement on one of the cameras, coming from up ahead. He squinted, trying to see details. They looked...sort of people-shaped. He saw two, then four, then six, then eight, all spreading out in a line facing him.


    Okay, yeah, that looks a little too much like a firing line to me. Imma stop right here. Nick brought Rockhunter to a halt. What do I do?


    Nick did not want to start a war by accident. He didn''t know how to talk to these people. He couldn''t offer them food because he didn''t know what they ate. He had been hoping to show them the element samples from Petra and see if they liked them...


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    Actually, yeah. Let''s do that.


    Nick turned Rockhunter so that the hatch was facing away from the aliens, then he opened it and stepped out. Quickly, he set out the samples in a neat row, including one silver coin and one copper coin along with the hexagonal ingots Petra used. On impulse, he put out a can of tuna as well. Maybe they can look at the label and see the alphabet and stuff? Then he hopped back inside and closed the hatch. A quick look at the aliens on the camera showed that some of them were staying put but one was moving to either side, like they wanted to encircle him.


    Yeah...no thanks. Bye. Nick got Rockhunter moving away, and built up speed quickly. A few of the aliens seemed to be moving in pursuit, but they weren''t as fast as Rockhunter so Nick went up the neighboring hill and then paused.


    He hit the transmit button again. ¡°Hello. This is Nick. You... get... gifts.¡± He adjusted the headlights on Rockhunter into a very narrow beam, and aimed it at the spot where he had dropped off the samples. He flashed the headlights a few times, then backed up a little more and waited.


    If they keep coming after me, I run south for a while until I lose them before I go home. The aliens moved closer...and closer...and one of them approached the spot where he''d laid out the ingots. Nick fiddled with the cameras, trying to get a better look.


    They did seem people-shaped: one head, two arms, two legs. It was hard to make out more in the dark at this range, and he didn''t want to spook the aliens by blasting the searchlight on one of them. Half of them were gathering around the samples, while the other half spread out but didn''t advance towards Rockhunter.


    Do I stay or go?


    Nick suddenly realized that he should have built a video communicator and left it with them. Now that I know where they are, I can drop it off whenever. Sounds like a plan.


    He hit the transmitter and said, ¡°I ...go...now. Goodbye.¡± He turned Rockhunter away from the aliens and headed south. The aliens kept talking on the radio, but Nick just made sure Petra was recording everything and didn''t respond. After a few more minutes, the alien radio fell silent. It was a long, quiet ride back. Nick didn''t have much to say.


    First contact, and nobody died yet. Could have been worse, he thought, trying to look on the bright side. I just really hope my germs don''t kill them or visa versa.


    He made it back to Petra''s dungeon before the Death Star rose. As soon as he had eaten and washed up, he looked through Petra''s communicator options again, until he found the cheapest one with video and enough range. They had enough materials to build two of them, so he got that going.


    Next time, after I drop one of these off, I''m going after that element 90.

 Chapter 52: Safety Precautions

    After Nick had slept, gone for a swim, cleaned up and eaten breakfast, Nick started the tedious process of going through ingredients lists and trying to figure out how much element 90 he needed to build various things. How many of those ingots of element 90 do I have to get?


    Nick had stumbled across a way to get Petra to troubleshoot his plans. He just started listing out all the steps, and asked Petra to do them. If she started the first step, he just aborted the command, but if she didn''t, he could usually coax out the reason eventually. Well, not always...but he could usually come up with a workaround that Petra didn''t object to.


    When he started listing out the steps in his mining plan, Petra announced, ¡°Error.¡±


    Nick paused. ¡°What kind of error?¡±


    ¡°Nick takes damage.¡±


    ¡°I''m going to hurt myself? How?¡±


    ¡°Not understood.¡±


    ¡°Stop error.¡±


    ¡°Not understood.¡±


    Nick sighed and started removing steps in the plan one at a time to see where Petra was choking. It was a pain, but eventually he hit the spot: Petra didn''t want to print out ingots of element 90.


    ¡°You can''t carry it all in your stomach, Petra, we need like eleven ingots of the stuff.¡± Each ingot was 420 units, whatever a ¡°unit¡± was for element 90. One ingot was the amount Petra could hold in whatever she used for a gut before she couldn''t absorb any more.


    Nick tried a bunch of ways to convince Petra to accept the plan to stack up ingots. It turned out she objected the same way to most of the other high number elements, too.


    At some point, he realized that the elements he was going after were radioactive, and it would be unhealthy for him to ride around in Rockhunter with a stack of them behind his seat. That''s what Petra was going on about. That still left the problem of what to do about it, though.


    I wish I knew which element lead was. Nick was pretty sure that lead blocked radiation. He became totally sure once he remembered that lead blocked kryptonite. That must be what they based it on.


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    Nick got frustrated and had to take a few breaks, but eventually, he hit on a way to get Petra to do what was needed: she was willing to print out a quarter of an ingot. When he tried to stack them up in simulation, though, the ingots didn''t identify as element 90. They were labeled as partly element 90, partly element 82, and partly iron, with a little bit of carbon in there for some reason.


    Nick had Petra print out a sample of element 82. It looked just like iron, but felt a bit heavier. Nick got an sample of iron to make sure. He frowned when he realized that the samples looked exactly alike. Nick made a closer examination of Petra''s plan for printing it out.


    It turned out that they looked identical because they were identical; the element 82 was wrapped in a thin layer of iron. Petra doesn''t want me touching lead either, huh? Wait, isn''t lead poisoning...no, that''s just slang for getting shot, right?


    Petra had a design for the ingots of radioactive elements. Nick had gotten an objection because he assumed that he wanted pure ingots, like he did for other elements. When he let Petra do it her way, the radioactive material was going to be printed out surrounded by lead in a fat ingot, wrapped in a thin layer of iron. In fact, something like 90% of the ingot was lead, which meant that Nick needed somewhere over a hundred of these fatter ingots. It was still a reasonable amount of space inside Rockhunter, so he approved the plan. He made sure to load up a bunch of iron-wrapped lead ingots, so that they would have enough shielding material to build the radioactive ingots out of.


    The communicators were taking a while to print out. Nick debated whether to finish those first, or go prospecting for radioactives. The aliens weren''t going anywhere, hopefully, but then again, neither were the rocks. He decided to deal with the communicators first. His only hesitation was worrying that the aliens might make him too busy with other things to get around to mining the heavy elements he needed to advance Petra''s abilities. But if things with the aliens were urgent for some reason, then going off and prospecting first would be bad.


    ¡°You have a message.¡±


    Nick straightened up, surprised for a moment, then said, ¡°Accept the call.¡±


    The aliens were back, even though it had not been seven local days. It was the same time, about 85 minutes after the Death Star set. He listened to the transmission.


    ¡°Wa...oo...fee...fowa...fi...Wa...oo...fee...fowa...fi...¡±


    Nick was about to respond, when he remembered that he didn''t want to give away his location. The aliens also said the same things in alienese that they had the previous two times.


    ¡°I hate to leave you hanging, guys, but I''ll be back soon,¡± Nick muttered.


    A few minutes later, Petra reported that the first of the video communicators was ready. Nick thought about that, and considered how much time it would take to print the other one, and how long it would take to pay the aliens another visit. He paused the second print.


    ¡°You know what? Fuck it. I''m going back there. We can start talking after the second one gets done printing.¡± Nick started loading up Rockhunter with everything he could think of. It was time for a trade mission.

 Chapter 53: Second Contact

    Nick spent a little while checking out more ruins on the way to the aliens with the radio tower. One looked like a town that had been completely burned up by fire. Petra''s scan picked up a lot of iron nails and a few other odds and ends, but no more piles of gold or silver.


    They found a few copper coins, but that was about it. Picking them up took care, as the Death Star was out, but Nick was careful to stay in shadow. He knew by now to pick them up with a bit of cloth for a mitt, as they were scalding hot from lying in the sun.


    I''m really curious about these places, but I need to focus on the live ones. Nick headed for the radio tower. Again, he was careful to steer a bit to the south, and then turn to approach from a different angle.


    This time, unsurprisingly, no one came out to meet him. He wondered if the aliens would even know he was coming. Did they keep a lookout? Why bother, when there was almost nothing left alive on the planet? Then again, maybe now that they know I''m out here somewhere, I might be making them nervous. Well, one problem at a time.


    Nick got the notification again about the ¡°dungeon¡± as he approached, but this time he had brought the 3D display along, and he got a good map of the interior of the alien base, along with a clearer scan of the resources available inside that hill. The veins of element 47 running throughout, some of them touching the open spaces, made it obvious. This is an alien silver mine.


    He took another look. I could tell them exactly where to dig, if they wanted more. I wonder if they know there''s some gold in there too?


    Then again, I suppose they''re a lot more concerned with survival, these days. Their world is dying. Do they even have food? Are they starving to death? Who were they trying to reach with their radio transmissions, anyway?


    Rockhunter was nearly to the entrance. This was closer than Nick had come last time. He considered waiting at a distance, or just dropping items off in the same place as before, but he wasn''t sure how well the communicator could handle the light of the Death Star. He was hoping to drop the thing off right at their entrance, in a patch of shade that wouldn''t shrink before sunset.


    He was picking up movement inside and nearby, though. Maybe they picked up the vibration and realize that I''m out here and getting really close.


    Uhh...maybe this isn''t the best idea. The smart move might be to wait for sunset, but then he would have to contend with the aliens coming out and maybe surrounding him. Fuck it. No matter what I choose, it''s going to feel like a dumb plan, so I might as well get this done.


    Nick drove right up to the entrance, and turned Rockhunter so that the hatch opened in the shade. Do this quick and get out. Nick took a deep breath, picked up some ingots, and opened the hatch. He stepped out, ducking instinctively, and started laying out the ingots in neat rows, just like he did the last time.


    The entrance to the mine was an ordinary looking tunnel, with a beat-up wooden door blocking it off about a dozen feet in. The wood had that weird zig-zag grain just like the other examples he''d seen. Nick grabbed another armload of ingots and laid them out, working as fast as he could. Do this quick and get out. Do this quick and get out.


    He heard something.


    It was jarring, to hear a natural sounding noise, instead of the hum of machinery or Petra''s synthesized voice. Nick ran back to Rockhunter and grabbed the communicator. You should have put this out first, dumbass! He carried it in one arm and hustled back, just in time to see the door open. He skidded to a halt as two aliens took a step forward.


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    Green. The aliens were green, much like the ones he had seen on Market Street back when all this started. Nick''s eyes weren''t fully adjusted to the relative darkness in the tunnel, though there was some kind of light source behind the aliens too.


    Everyone stood still.


    Several seconds passed.


    They were vaguely human shaped, but the heads were weirdly triangular. He still couldn''t see their faces clearly, but they could probably see him just fine...or maybe not? Maybe their eyes needed to adjust too.


    Two arms, two legs. They were mostly covered in something like clothes, that looked filthy with dust. Nick had no idea what colors they would be when clean.


    Holding his breath, Nick very, very slowly raised his free hand in a greeting. The aliens didn''t react. Still moving very, very slowly, Nick pointed at the communicator in his arm, and ran his finger back and forth along it for a second. Then, still very slowly, Nick pointed upward, and swept his finger up and down slightly to indicate the radio tower.


    Very, very slowly, Nick crouched down and set the communicator on the floor of the tunnel, all without taking his eyes off the aliens. He heard some alien speech coming from behind the two in front, who still hadn''t moved a muscle up to that point. In response, one turned its head slightly and made a pretty universal shushing sound.


    Nick let go of the communicator, and was about to stand up when he had an awful thought. Oh shit, germs! He made some gestures that he hoped conveyed what he was doing, and then used one sleeve to wipe the parts of the communicator that he had just touched with his bare hands. He pointed at them, and then made cleaning motions at it.


    Very slowly, Nick rose to his feet again. I should talk, but I don''t want to breathe germs in their faces. I don''t want to breathe their germs either. Taking a chance, he put his sleeve up covering his mouth and nose, raised his other hand in greeting again, and said, ¡°Hello.¡± He pointed at himself. ¡°Nick. I...go...now.¡± He took a careful step back.


    The aliens were still basically frozen, so he took another couple of steps back. He gestured at the ingots, making a little shooing motion towards them. ¡°You...get....gifts.¡± He pointed at himself, then behind him. ¡°I...go...now.¡±


    He kept backing up, slightly faster. The aliens were moving slightly but not stepping forward. They seemed to be peering down at his gifts. Then one said something in their language, then something else, raising its voice¡ªher voice, maybe? It was higher pitched than the voice on the radio.


    Nick froze, though he probably should have bolted. He could hear noises farther in, coming closer. Get in the car, get in the car, get in the car, he told himself, but stayed put. My curiosity is going to kill me dead someday and someday might be right this fucking minute and I should get in the car, get in the fucking car, Nick...


    The high-voiced alien¡ªthe girl, Nick dubbed her mentally¡ªturned suddenly and Nick flinched back. The other alien took a step forward, and Nick finally bolted. The girl called out something in her language, shouting after him as he ran.


    Just as he jumped inside Rockhunter, he heard something oddly familiar: a bouncing metal can. The fuck? Nick looked back.


    The girl was holding out an arm, stopping the other alien from advancing. With a rattle, the tuna can rolled along the tunnel floor towards him. It was open, and empty. Nick stared.


    You gotta be shitting me. We can eat the same food?


    She was calling something urgently to the aliens behind her. Nick paused. Go, dumbass, go, dumbass, go...


    He waited.


    More noises inside. She moved again, then turned back to Nick and held something out. She mimed as if she were bowling a couple of times, then rolled something towards him.


    It stopped short only a couple of feet in front of the alien.


    The alien said a word. Everyone paused again. The alien looked down at the thing, up at Nick, back and forth a couple of times. Then holding up one hand as if to stop him, she took a step forward, bent over and picked up the thing. Then she tried again, throwing much harder.


    The thing bounced towards him, then rolled. It got more than halfway to him. Nick took a step forward, then jumped back in, which must have looked strange. He grabbed his ¡°mitt¡±, then scurried forward, grabbed the thing, and bolted.


    It was a fucking can, and it felt full.

 Chapter 54: Poison and Population

    Nick started to close the hatch, then hesitated. Maybe... Nick opened the hatch again, and quickly tossed all the food he was carrying onto the ground. Then, he closed the hatch for real, and got the hell out of there.


    Okay, second time meeting and still nobody dead¡ªso far. I just pray to God we''re immune to each other''s diseases. He desperately wanted to ask Petra about it, but didn''t know how. He tried anyway.


    After a few dozen failures, Nick finally asked, ¡°I go other dungeon. I get air. I lose health?¡±


    ¡°Not now, Nick.¡± Petra was mimicking something he said to her often. I think she means ''not yet.'' Maybe.


    ¡°I go other dungeon. I get air. Tomorrow, I lose health?¡±


    ¡°I don''t know, Nick.¡±


    Shit. That wasn''t ''I don''t understand'', that was ''I don''t know.'' So, that''s a maybe.


    ¡°I go other dungeon. I get air. Tomorrow, I lose all health?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    Well, that''s a relief...and surprisingly direct.


    ¡°Explain.¡± That command only worked about one time in ten or twenty, but luck was with him this time.


    ¡°Tomorrow, Nick lose health, Petra see, Petra heal Nick.¡±


    Nick turned that over in his head. If¡ªbig if¡ªwe''re not mis-communicating again, then Petra is confident that if I get sick with an alien bug, she can heal me. But what about them?


    For some reason, the concept of ¡°other people¡± was one Nick and Petra had a lot of trouble communicating. It was like Petra got it, then forgot it again. It was weird. Of course, it wouldn''t be so weird if it was Nick who was screwing up repeatedly. For the rest of the trip home, Nick tried to get an answer out of Petra as to whether the aliens would get sick from his germs, without success.


    If only learning how to speak with Petra wasn''t so goddamn boring! I''ve got transcripts of every conversation we''ve ever had, but hunting through them for a word or phrase has got to be the dullest thing ever. I really suck at this.


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    As soon as Nick arrived home, he set Petra to building the other communicator, then went for a swim to clear his head. Man, I just hope they don''t break the communicator I gave them, trying to take it apart or something. After he''d done enough laps to feel tired, he floated on his back, stared at the stone ceiling, and tried to think.


    Who are these people, anyway?


    They''re natives to this world. They had a civilization, towns and cities and farms and mines and radio towers. And now the Death Star is practically sterilizing everything. How are they growing crops? Are they growing crops? Are they starving to death? How fast is this happening? How long ago did the Death Star turn lethal? How are they still alive?


    When I was about to bolt, that girl alien basically begged me to wait long enough for her to show me that they''d opened and emptied the can of tuna, and that that was important. Why else would it be so important unless they need food?


    Are these people miners? Small town citizens? Military? Corporate? Random survivors? Nick sighed. It doesn''t fucking matter. They''re dying. They need help.


    Can I help?


    Nick got out of the pool, dried off and got dressed. He looked at the T shirt and sighed. It''s boring only having exact copies of the same T shirt every day. At least I have spare clothes. Good thing Petra can replicate anything.


    He checked on the progress of the print. Still a bunch of hours until I can talk to them. He couldn''t print anything else at the same time, but he could analyze something. He had Petra absorb the can the aliens had given him, being careful not to touch it with his bare hands.


    ¡°Is this food?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    Somewhat wise in the ways of Petra, Nick asked, ¡°Is there food inside this?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°I eat this food, I lose health?¡±


    ¡°I don''t know.¡±


    ¡°I eat this food, I lose all health?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    Again, Petra was confident she could save him if he poisoned himself. Nick decided to try it, once Petra''s printer was free to make some.


    Nick wandered into the pantry and checked out his supplies of food. He had enough for about a week of regular eating at this point, and every day had Petra print out another day''s worth of food or a bit more, so that he would have a buffer when making time-consuming prints of equipment.


    I''ll try to talk with them, and see if they want more of my food. If they''re desperate, I''ll bring them what I''ve got and have Petra just print food for a while.


    Nick forced himself to scroll through transcripts for a while, and got reminded of something. He went back to a drawing he had made of Earth and BigBall side by side, with population labeled. At the time, Petra had said that the population of BigBall was 1, but with uncertainty. Now, though, they had scanned the interior of the silver mine.


    ¡°Petra, what is the population of BigBall?¡±


    ¡°Twenty-eight.¡±


    Son of a bitch.


    ¡°Population of this dungeon?¡±


    ¡°One.¡±


    ¡°Population of the other dungeon?¡±


    ¡°Twenty-seven.¡±


    Damn. Twenty-seven aliens, and they might be the last survivors of their entire species. Well, hopefully not. They''re trying to call someone on the radio, so there must be others, right?


    ...or there were.


    Nick shivered.


    ¡°Fuck. All this time, I''ve been hoping for rescue...and I might end up doing the rescuing instead.¡±

 Chapter 55: Beans, Lights, Camera...

    Day became night became day, in that weird way BigBall had, going in and out of synch with sunrise back home. Finally, Petra finished printing the second communicator. Before he turned it on, he had Petra print a few cans of the alien food, and then several cans of tuna.


    The alien cans were mostly like cans on Earth but the lip was a little strange. Nick had to use his can opener at a weird angle to get one open. When he managed it, the smell was...kind of gross, actually.


    Ugh, this is food for them? Nick picked up a spoon and scooped out a little bit. The stuff was lots of little oblong bits in some kind of sauce. Are these...beans? I wonder what would happen if I planted them?


    Nick tentatively lifted the spoon towards his lips, and got another whiff of it. Oh, that''s vile. Am I sure this stuff hasn''t gone bad or something? He pressed his lips together and squinted at the stuff in the spoon. I wonder if...


    ¡°Petra, clean these off, please?¡± One of Petra''s kitchen ¡°monsters¡± swept over the bowl, leaving it empty. Nick closed his eyes. ¡°Not what I meant, Petra. Never mind, I''ll try to do it myself.¡±


    Nick put a couple of spoonfuls of the alien food into another bowl, then added water. He swirled it around, dumped the water out, and repeated the process. At first the water was coming out yellowish-brown, but the color got fainter with each round of washing. Nick kept going about a dozen times. Once he was pretty sure he had gotten all the sauce off, he took a spoonful again and lifted it to his nose.


    Well, it still smells weird, but it doesn''t smell disgusting any more. Nick stared at it a little longer, working up his courage. Finally, he put a few of the little lumps in his mouth and rested them on his tongue for a moment. When nothing really horrible happened, he started chewing the alien beans slowly.


    The taste was...Nick forgot the word. It sounded like, ¡°Yo Mama¡± or ¡°Yo Mommy¡± or something like that. The ¡°beans¡± tasted like little lumps of meat. Greasier than chicken. Duck, maybe? Almost...oily. I would sort of think it''s fish, except...Nick gave up. The taste just didn''t fit in the boxes he put human food in.


    Nick chewed and swallowed. Then he waited a little while, and his stomach gurgled a bit. At least I''m not vomiting. If these are alien beans, I wonder if they''ll make me fart?


    It turned out that they did a little worse than that.


    After his guts settled back down, Nick thought it over. Yeah, this happens even with human food when you go to certain countries. Why did I think it wouldn''t happen with alien food? So...it''s not as bad as the worst human food? Yay, I guess...


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    Nick was hungry, so he had Petra make him some stew. While that was cooking, he got some straight up copies of the food he had dropped off with the aliens. He checked his appearance, then combed his hair and beard. A little bit nervously, Nick said, ¡°Petra, turn on both communicators. It''s showtime.¡±


    Nothing happened.


    ¡°Petra, are the¡ª?¡±


    There was a very loud squawk of some sort. It kind of sounded like someone asked a chicken to try to bark like a dog and it did its best. There was also a clatter of something metallic. Then, silence. Nick waited a few more moments, then tried again.


    ¡°Hello?¡±


    There was some kind of thump, much lower in volume. Then footsteps, sounding kind of like boots on stone, if the boots were made of metal. There was still no video. Very faintly, Nick thought he heard an alien calling out something in their language. Calling for the boss, maybe?


    Alien conversation gradually grew louder. There were at least two voices, maybe three. One was higher-pitched. Maybe that''s the smart one, the one who threw me the can of Montezuma''s Revenge.


    ¡°Flarg, Zozo, Koog,¡± Nick tried. ¡°One, two, three. Hello?¡±


    One alien shushed the others. ¡°Eh-oh,¡± they answered loudly. ¡°Ick?¡±


    ¡°Nick. Yes. This is Nick. I am Nick.¡±


    ¡°Uh, oo, fee.¡± The alien rattled something else off. Nick had no idea what they were saying.


    ¡°Petra, why aren''t we getting video?¡±


    ¡°I don''t understand, Nick.¡±


    Nick blew air out his cheeks. I''m going to get a headache really quickly if I have to fight for words with Petra and with a pack of aliens at the same time. ¡°Petra, I no see communicator number...six,¡± Nick finished after checking. ¡°Petra, is communicator number six on?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Nick.¡±


    ¡°Can you see?¡±


    ¡°I can see you, Nick.¡±


    Nick groaned. At least the aliens shut up. They''re probably finding this conversation fascinating. ¡°Can communicator six see?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°What is communicator six seeing?¡±


    ¡°Lights out,¡± Petra replied, which Nick had taught her for when he wanted it dark enough to sleep in his room.


    They''re standing around in the dark? No. Something is blocking the camera. They probably put the communicator facing the wall on a dark shelf or something.


    ¡°Petra, bring me the biggest light.¡±


    A minute later, one of the little guys had fetched a big searchlight. Nick turned it on, and pointed it at the communicator. Then, he started turning up the brightness. ¡°You see? You see light? You see biiiig light?¡± Nick turned the light up to maximum when he said biiiig, then brought it back down again. On the screen, he had briefly gotten a look at a rock wall from extremely close up, and lit from below at an extreme angle. Then he waited.


    After a few scuffing noises, video appeared and the perspective spun dizzyingly for a moment. The room the aliens had put the communicator in was fairly dark, but he could see the triangular outline of an aliens'' head, with a flat top, tapering down to a neck. Nick slowly turned up the brightness on the searchlight again until he could finally get his first clear look at a native of BigBall.


    Likewise, the aliens could see the screen at last, and since Nick was lit fairly well, they should be able to see him clearly. The alien in front of the camera said a single word. Nick actually remembered the sound¡ªit was the noise the girl alien had made when her first throw of the can of beans failed miserably. It sounded like a swear word.


    ''Shit'', indeed, lady.

 Chapter 56: Food Critic

    Welp, that''s an alien all right.


    The native had skin that was forest green. Two eyes, no nose, a mouth with big lips. Each eye was black with a single white ring. A lot of the triangular shape of the head came from oddly large ears. Given the color, Nick would have expected scales like a lizard, but the skin looked...soft. Maybe like green velvet or something. Maybe I''m looking at really thin fur?


    The alien was getting awfully close to the camera, as her eyes darted back and forth. Nick kept his mouth shut as he smiled. Don''t want to show my teeth if they think that''s a threat. He moved his own head back and forth a bit, leaned close, then backed away.


    Okay, how do I want to do this? Start with names.


    ¡°Hello. I am Nick. You are...?¡± Nick pointed at himself, then at the camera.


    There was a pause. ¡°Ktheg!lik.¡±


    Nick puffed air a moment, then gave it his best shot. ¡°Katheeg!lik.¡±


    ¡°Ktheg!lik.¡±


    ¡°Kth...Kth...Can I just call you Kathy? Kathy?¡± Nick asked, pointing.


    ¡°Ick. Ik!eh.¡±


    ¡°Hello, Kathy.¡±


    ¡°Ello, Ik!eh.¡±


    The other two aliens started talking or arguing with Kathy.


    Start with the most important thing. Nick picked up a can of tuna. ¡°Food.¡± That got their attention.


    ¡°Foo,¡± Kathy said, and gave an awkward nod. Nick nodded back, then put it down and picked up a bag of chips.


    ¡°Food. Chips.¡±


    The alien leaned closer to the camera.


    Nick tore open the bag with a quick tug, then reached in and grabbed a handful and set it on the shelf in front of him. ¡°Chips. One chip...two chips...three chips.¡±


    ¡°Kih. Wa kih. Oo kih. Fee kih.¡±


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    Nick nodded again. ¡°Yes. Good.¡± He held up a chip. ¡°I...¡± He pointed at himself. ¡°Eat...¡± He moved it towards and away from his mouth a few times. ¡°chip.¡± He munched the chip.


    ¡°I...give...you...chips.¡±


    He kept going like that, making gestures. It was a lot easier communicating with the aliens than it was with Petra. At least they had bodies and stuff. With lots of pauses and repeats, he gave them an English lesson for a long while.


    ¡°Bag...bag of chips...chips in bag. I give bag of chips.¡±


    At that point, Kathy got excited. ¡°You...gi...oo...ag...of...kih?¡± Will you give us two bags of chips?


    ¡°Yes. I give two bags of chips. I give three bags of chips.¡±


    ¡°You...gi...fi...ann...fi...ag...of...kih?¡±


    ¡°Five and five is ten. Yes. I give ten bags of chips.¡±


    ¡°Can...oona. You gi...fi...ann...fi...can...oona?¡±


    ¡°Yes. I give ten cans of tuna.¡±


    Kathy did this odd thing where she leaned forward, then swung her head and shoulders side to side for a moment. Nick stared in confusion a moment, and Kathy did it again, and said something in her language.


    ¡°I think that''s ''thank you,''¡± Nick muttered. ¡°Thank you.¡± He bowed and put his hands together.


    ¡°...Ank...you.¡±


    ¡°Petra, time to make a bag of chips?¡±


    ¡°Seven minutes, eighteen seconds, Nick.¡±


    ¡°Seven minutes, eighteen seconds...¡± he muttered. The aliens were talking excitedly among themselves. ¡°How many bags of chips can we make today?¡±


    ¡°Eighty-three bags, Nick.¡±


    ¡°Start printing ten bags of chips, Petra.¡± They probably wanted an assortment of foods.


    ¡°Yes, Nick.¡±


    Nick chewed his lip a moment, thinking. Kathy spoke up. ¡°Ik!eh...you...izzz...oo?¡± It took Nick long enough to get it that he called himself a dumbass in his head.


    ¡°Yes. I...am...two. Um...I...is...two. Nick and Petra. You are twenty-seven? I mean, you...is...twenty-seven? Ten and ten and five and two?¡±


    The aliens got all excited again, talking amongst themselves for a minute. ¡°Ik!eh, you...say...en ann en and fi and oo?¡±


    Oh! They''re wondering how I knew there are twenty-seven of them. Hm, how do I explain this?


    Nick spent a while on a bunch of words like see, big, small, sick, die, and so on. He got sick and die across with dramatic overacting. Then, he could finally ask some important things.


    ¡°Kathy...You is sick?¡±


    ¡°Esss...oo is sick.¡±


    Oh, shit. ¡°Nick give sick?¡±


    Kathy paused. ¡°No.¡± Phew.


    ¡°Two sick, die?¡±


    ¡°Yes...no...yes...no.¡±


    ¡°Maybe,¡± Nick interpreted.


    Kathy paused again. ¡°Ktheg!lik gi sick?¡±


    Nick grinned and held up a can of alien beans. ¡°Small sick. Nick is sick...Nick is no sick.¡±


    Kathy responded by showing the wrapper of a snack bar. ¡°Ktheg!lik izz sick... Ktheg!lik izz no sick.¡± Then, she held up an empty bag of chips. ¡°Ktheg!lik izz no sick.¡± Next, she showed the empty can of tuna. ¡°Ktheg!lik izz no sick.¡± Finally, an empty can of soup. ¡°Ktheg!lik izz no sick.¡±


    Huh. I would have thought the fish would make her sick if anything would. Then again, there''s like forty-something ingredients in one of those snack bars. I''m amazed we can each each other''s food at all in the first place.


    ¡°Ik!eh.¡±


    Nick could hear something extra in Kathy''s tone. She shifted, possibly taking a deep breath.


    ¡°Ik!eh no gi food, Ktheg!lik die. Ik!eh no gi food, en ann en and fi and oo die.¡±

 Chapter 57: Give a Man a Fish

    Nick puffed out his cheeks and leaned back. This is...a heavy load. He rubbed his forehead for a few moments. ¡°I give food. Wait.¡±


    ¡°Petra, I need a device.¡± Nick pulled up Petra''s menu and started searching through her blueprints. He left the transmitter running so that the aliens could see he was working on it.


    ¡°What device do you need?¡± They had spoken this exchange several times once Nick had taught it to her.


    ¡°I need a device to print food. Just food.¡±


    Petra showed him a printer menu. He''d seen it before, when he had realized that having Petra print everything herself directly was taking too long. The simplest one he had made was the air purifier. It ¡°printed¡± clean air, using contaminated air as a source.


    Now he was looking specifically for a food printer. Once he found some options, he sorted them by expense of materials. All of them needed carbon and hydrogen and so on to build the food out of, naturally, but it also took significant resources to print a printer, even a limited one. Nick was running out of element 25, for example.


    He tried again, looking for printers with fewer and fewer capabilities.


    ¡°Ik!eh?¡±


    ¡°Kathy, I... make ...food.¡± He gestured vaguely with his hands and hoped that she got it. ¡°I make printer, I give you printer, you make food.¡± Kathy didn''t appear to get all of it, but she understood enough to get excited. Nick went back to looking at menus, trying to think. Then he got an idea.


    ¡°Oh! Kathy! Um...Hold on a sec...¡± He rummaged around until he came up with a silver coin. ¡°Element forty-seven. Silver. Um...ten and ten and ten and ten and five and two,¡± he said slowly, hoping that he hadn''t lost count.


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    Nick taught them the rest of the numbers up to a hundred, because this was going to take forever otherwise. Once they had that down, he picked up samples and showed them. ¡°Element forty-seven. Element seventy-nine. Element twenty-six. You get it?¡±


    ¡°Eh eh men.¡±


    ¡°Good.¡± Now here''s the tricky bit. I''m glad I already went through this with Petra. ¡°Element eight.¡± He made a big show of inhaling. ¡°Element eight and element six.¡± He blew the air out dramatically. ¡°You? Yes or no?¡±


    ¡°Yezz! Eh eh men ayy, eh eh men ayy and eh eh men zzih.¡±


    ¡°Good. That means I can give you an air purifier and you''ll get carbon for food.¡± Nick heaved a sigh and rubbed his forehead again. This is exhausting.


    ¡°Element eight and element one.¡± Nick poured a cup of water in front of the camera. ¡°Water.¡±


    ¡°Aw uh.¡±


    ¡°You need food. You need water? Yes or no?¡±


    ¡°No.¡± Kathy said something to one of the other aliens, and a minute later, she was showing off a pitcher of fairly dirty water. I''ll have to see about giving them a water purifier too. But the important thing, though, is that they already have a water supply.


    Nick went back to searching for food printers, trying to make it cheaper. A cruder model needed water and ingots to be fed in by hand, but the aliens probably wouldn''t mind that.


    ¡°Petra?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Nick?¡±


    ¡°Language tutorial. Talk to them. Learn their language, and teach them English.¡±


    ¡°I don''t understand, Nick.¡±


    Eight tries later, Nick was pretty sure he got the point across, because Petra started talking to the aliens.


    Meanwhile, Nick figured out what he needed and set up a production queue. He could bring them some of his devices so that they wouldn''t have to wait. At least three solar panels to run things. An air purifier. A dehumidifier. That decided, he set Petra to printing the cheapest food printer he could make, and then more of his own food supply.


    I''ve got a million questions, but they''ll have to wait until Petra figures out their language. I''ll go nuts if I try to do it myself. At least there''s more than one of them so they can switch off as needed. Petra will never get tired. So, with any luck, she will pick up BigBall-ese a lot faster than English.


    I wonder, how long will it take Kathy and the rest to realize that Petra is the interesting and important one, not me?

 Chapter 58: Wrong Side of the Bed

    Nick listened to Petra giving lessons in alienese to the BigBall natives. He got Petra to show him what she was displaying for Kathy and the others. It looked a lot like many of Petra''s early attempts to communicate with him. The natives were making progress quickly, apparently, unlike Nick.


    Eventually, though, Nick started yawning, and excused himself. This took some explaining of time units but he mostly left that to Petra, and turned in for the night/day/whatever. His sleep schedule had long since abandoned Earth time and BigBall time both.


    * *


    When Nick woke up, he showered, swam, dressed, and ate breakfast. Next, he checked on the production schedule. It would be another twenty-six hours before the food printer was ready. When he looked over the specs again, he realized that the printer would need some feed stock specifically meant for it. It looked like an ingot made up of a bunch of minor ingredients.


    Makes sense. Most of the food gets made out of carbon and water, but the secret ingredients that make an apple an apple or what have you, they would need those, but not nearly so much. It''s like a spices stick. He checked how long it would take to make some of those feedstock ingots, sighed, and put those in the queue right after the printer itself.


    Only then did he go back to the communicator to check on the natives'' progress. For a while he just listened in. Even though it was gobbledygook to him, the way they paused and repeated things gave him the impression that things were going well.


    Nick called up Petra''s status, and rearranged it into something simpler and more readable.


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    Name: Petra


    Level: 8


    Class: Dungeon


    Rooms: 29


    Traps: 4


    Monsters: 231


    Inventory: 55549/1048576


    Languages: Galactic 100%, Foglupa 100%, English 38%, Kthufu, 10%


    Nice. I''m guessing Kathy and the others speak Kthufu. Ten percent is pretty good for ten hours or so!


    Nick realized that he could go prospecting in Rockhunter while waiting for the printing to finish. Petra could continue the language lessons just as well on the road.


    ¡°Petra, show Kathy and the others the production schedule.¡± Petra actually understood all those words, or at least, she didn''t protest.


    ¡°Hello, Nick.¡±


    Nick frowned a moment, then realized what was going on. ¡°Petra, make a small beep sound at the beginning and end of translations.¡±


    ¡°Understood, Nick. (Beep.) Hello, Nick. (Beep.)¡±


    ¡°Good. Thank you.¡±


    ¡°You''re welcome, Nick.¡±


    ¡°Hello. I am Nick.¡±


    ¡°(Beep) kuk na on Ik!eh (beep).¡±


    Nick quickly tuned out the beeps as they did their job sorting out who was talking.


    ¡°Hello, Nick. I am Geh!kin.¡±


    ¡°I am going to go collect some element ninety.¡±


    ¡°I don''t understand, Nick,¡± Petra warned him.


    Nick sighed. ¡°I go. I get element ninety. I go home. I get food. I go you dungeon.¡±


    Petra translated that. The natives had a million questions for him, but Nick suddenly felt very, very tired. Was dealing with people always this exhausting?


    ¡°I go now. Petra, sound off here. Increase language percentage.¡± That was the expression that had gotten her to start learning Kthufu.


    Nick went to his room and glared at the little bowl of tiny medication pills. My stupid sleep is so messed up, I need to track better what time I take my meds. Right now, though, I can''t bring myself to care. Probably means I should take a few of these. Nick took three tiny pills, giving him an extra fifteen milligrams of his medication. Whatever.


    Nick grabbed most of the lead ingots available and stuffed them in Rockhunter, then packed a couple of meals and water. ¡°Let''s go get some radioactive rocks, Petra.¡±

 Chapter 59: Look, Its Very Simple

    Nick brought Petra along, since the communicator in Rockhunter was good enough to relay to the communicator back in the dungeon, which could talk to the other dungeon, so the aliens didn''t have to interrupt their language lesson. In fact, since he had already marked the spot on the earlier trip, he didn''t even have to drive. Petra was perfectly willing to steer.


    Feeling lousy, Nick settled himself as comfortably as he could, and tried to take a nap.


    The next thing he knew, his butt was warm, his eyes were crusty, and his neck was sore. If anything, his nap had left him in an even worse mood than earlier. He checked the time, and Rockhunter had been sitting still, doing nothing, for two hours. It was nearly sunset.


    Nick took care of his bodily needs and got a bit less cranky. Chewing on a snack bar, he rotated the 3D map of the area, looking at the ore deposits, trying to pick the best place to start digging. This stuff is spread out thinly all over the place. I was hoping for a big vein or something.


    Since one place looked as good as any other, Nick picked a spot on the north side of a hill and started the guys carving out a room, so that he would have someplace to take a break during daytime. Mason kept running back and forth, ejecting bricks made of common rock. Tunnel Rat needed some modification to its instructions. Eventually, he got it to bring back the more concentrated bits of deposits.


    Petra suggested a device like an air purifier, that would take in the slightly radioactive rocks and spit out non-radioactive blocks. Unfortunately, building it would take a lot of resources and a fair bit of time. ¡°You might have mentioned this earlier, Petra,¡± Nick grumbled.


    He fed the first bits to Petra, then asked, ¡°How long to get 110 ingots of radioactive material?¡± Of course, he had to rephrase it a bunch of ways. Eventually, Petra answered.


    ¡°Seven days, nine hours, and more.¡±


    Nick groaned and leaned back in his seat. ¡°Ugh, that''s going to take forever.¡± He rubbed his face for a moment and tried to think.


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    Okay, top priority is printing printers. No, wait. Top priority is ¡°don''t let the aliens starve to death.¡± I''m going to bring them a lot of my stuff, a lot of my food, print the food printer, print the feedstock for it, and bring that to them. Then, I can think about getting the radioactive stuff. Ugh, after I print more food for me.


    So long as he put them in the right priority order, he didn''t actually have to worry about how long it took to make things. It takes as long as it takes. Of course, he also had to hunt through Petra''s menus to see if there were any other important, useful devices he needed.


    ¡°Petra, have the guys here stay and keep mining.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Nick.¡±


    It''s never that easy. ¡°Petra, what did I just say?¡±


    Petra played back a recording of his voice. ¡°Petra, have the guys here stay and keep mining.¡±


    ¡°Do you understand?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Good. Let''s pack up and go home.¡±


    The guys started floating into Rockhunter.


    ¡°Petra, what are you doing?¡±


    Again the playback. ¡°Let''s pack up and go home.¡±


    ¡°No, Petra, you and I go home. The guys stay here.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Nick.¡± The guys stopped boarding and started exiting Rockhunter again.


    ¡°Do you understand?¡± Nick checked.


    ¡°Yes, Nick.¡±


    ¡°When we leave, what will the guys do?¡±


    ¡°The guys will stay here.¡±


    ¡°And keep mining?¡±


    ¡°I don''t understand.¡±


    Nick took a breath.


    ¡°Petra, tell the guys to mine for element ninety-two.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Nick.¡±


    The little robots got back to work.


    ¡°Petra, you and I will go home now.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Nick.¡±


    Nick shook his head and climbed aboard. He was about to start Rockhunter moving, when a suspicion nagged at him. ¡°Petra, when we get home, the guys will still be mining, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Nick.¡±


    ¡°Good.¡± Nick reached for the controls, then squinted. ¡°Petra?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Nick?¡±


    ¡°Will the guys still be mining tomorrow?¡±


    ¡°No, Nick.¡±


    ¡°Why not?¡±


    ¡°I don''t understand.¡±


    Fortunately, Nick guessed that the guys needed to recharge, and set out the extra solar panels he had brought along. ¡°Petra, tell the guys to recharge at these panels.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Nick.¡±


    The robots stopped mining and rolled over to the panels.


    Nick called up the charge percentages on the guys on his display tablet. They were nearly fully charged, and the panels were not going to make any energy until local morning.


    A movie quote came to mind, in a thick accent. ¡°Look, it''s very simple. I want you to stay ''ere, and make sure ''e, doesn''t leave.¡±


    Fifteen minutes later, Nick finally got Rockhunter moving, hoping that this time, the guys would continue mining the whole time until he returned.


    That was a whole production. ¡°Production.¡± Ha ha. I kill myself.


    Tomorrow, Nick knew, he would be 100% joking, but right at the moment...


    He sighed and waited to get home.

 Chapter 60: Coping with Depression

    Nick checked his food stores, and cans of alien beans were the easiest and fastest to print. He set Petra to printing more food for several hours, then to start in on the food printer. The time critical things dealt with, Nick went for a long swim. He was feeling pretty depressed. Exercise was fifth on his checklist of things to do while depressed, right after checking that he had taken his meds on time, food, water, and sleep.


    He didn''t feel ready to sleep, so he swam, trying to empty his head, trying to look on the bright side. My situation just got a lot more interesting and hopeful, so this is probably just stupid brain med issues. He''d missed his monthly check-in with his psychopharmacologist (and wasn''t that a mouthful.) He knew med dosages were not an exact science. Too bad Petra can''t be my psychopharmacologist. But that''s probably a bit too far for an alien super-printer.


    He went and looked at the apple saplings. There were three of them now, and they showed no sign of wilting. In just a few short decades, I''ll have trees to sleep under, he moped.


    Just because he hadn''t done it in a while, he called, ¡°Petra''s status,¡± and looked at the closest display.


    Name: Petra


    Level: 8


    Class: Dungeon


    Rooms: 31


    Traps: 6


    Monsters: 230


    Inventory: 705388/1048576


    External Storage: 585222


    Languages: Galactic 100%, Foglupa 100%, English 41%, Kthufu, 14%


    He snorted. She''s picking up Kthufu faster than English, which is fair enough. Maybe I should try learning Kthufu, but man that language hurts my throat.


    Next, he called up his own status.


    Name: Nick


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    Level: 7


    Class: Boss Monster


    Gender: Male


    Nick frowned. How did I get to Level 7? And what does that even mean? ¡°Petra, explain my level, please.¡±


    For once, Petra got it on the first try. ¡°You have survived the dungeon more than 64 days.¡±


    More than 64? That sounds random. ¡°When will I reach Level 8?¡±


    ¡°You have survived the dungeon more than 128 days.¡±


    Nick started doing math in his head. 64 plus 64 is 128. Does it double every time? I guess it doesn''t matter; this is just Petra trying to cope without good English, talking about everything in gaming terms.


    He looked over the rest of his status page and spotted


    Debuff: no pills


    Nick stared at that for a moment, then tapped to edit it:


    Debuff: depression


    ¡°Petra? How did you know I have a depression debuff?¡±


    ¡°I don''t understand.¡±


    Nick groaned. I know I hashed this out with Petra at some point. ¡°How did you know...?¡± Nick wracked his brain, trying to remember. He even looked at the transcripts and searched for the phrase, finally finding what he wanted when he was on the verge of giving up. He read it over a couple of times, then spoke.


    ¡°Petra...what tool...give you data...debuff, no pills?¡±


    ¡°Monster 219.¡±


    Nick hunted through the menus for ¡°Monster 219¡± and found that it was apparently lodged in his brain.


    God damn. Having them in my stomach and blood is one thing, but in my brain? Nick grimaced. Well, unless it is causing my depression, which I doubt, it doesn''t appear to be doing any harm. I was always this much of a dumbass.


    Nick braced himself, and then dove into talking about his brain chemistry. He seriously couldn''t understand much of it, but forced Petra to dumb it down enough for him, eventually.


    ¡°So, you know this number all the time?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Nick.¡±


    ¡°And when this number is less than 47, I get the depression debuff?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Nick.¡±


    ¡°Petra, what is the most this...um...what is maximum this number...¡± Nick groaned.


    ¡°I don''t understand, Nick.¡±


    ¡°I know, I''m trying. Please be patient.¡± He had taught her that that phrase meant ''wait.''


    ¡°Yes, Nick.¡±


    Eventually, he got it across. Apparently, the highest value Petra had ever seen for that number was 81.


    ¡°Call that the brain med number. Petra, alert me when the brain med number goes above 81, or below 47.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Nick.¡±


    My doc would probably give up a leg to be able to track this number in her patients. Nick went and got the bowl of tiny pills Petra had made for him. He double-checked that he had taken his meds less than twenty-four hours earlier, and then started taking mini-pills, one at a time, hoping to wait until he saw the number go up and settle again. Unfortunately, it took far too long, so Nick just picked a number of pills to try.


    Then he turned to an old habit: doing something boring but productive when depressed. I don''t always get to be in a good mood. It would suck to be in a good mood and then have to do something unpleasant. So, do the unpleasant stuff when I feel bad.


    He loaded Rockhunter with nearly all of his food. He pulled out half of his air purifiers and one of his water purifiers from different rooms, and loaded them as well. He took three of the solar panels down from outside. If I wanted to spend six hours commuting back and forth, I could bring them some food now. Better to wait until the food printer is ready, and the feedstock.


    Plus, I should get some decent sleep and wait for my brain number to go up. I probably shouldn''t be cranky and depressed when I talk to the aliens.

 Chapter 61: A Real Conversation

    The world¡ªgalaxy, rather¡ªlooked much better after some more sleep. It probably didn''t hurt that Petra reported his brain med number to be 64. He had her keep a graph going, showing him how the number went up and down over time, and put a note whenever he took meds and how much.


    I might actually have depression beat, with this! So long as I religiously track that number and keep it in bounds, maybe I won''t feel depressed for no reason any more. Petra, you''re worth your weight in gold. No, that''s selling you way too cheap. You''re priceless.


    Nick clenched his fists in victory. Oh, yeah, life rocks when I''m not depressed. Look at me, on the wildest adventure ever. Speaking of which...


    Nick checked that the Death Star was up, and started listening in on the language lessons. Currently there were two alien voices Nick didn''t recognize, speaking in their language and then speaking English with most of the consonants missing, it seemed like. As he tried to figure it out, he realized that Petra was also teaching the aliens Galactic.


    I guess that makes sense. Petra needs to use at least one language that she''s completely proficient in. I''ve learned a handful of words in Galactic, but I don''t really know what they mean, because neither of us know the English word for whatever. I just sort of know when to use them.


    Nick figured out how to insert himself back into the conversation without blocking the visuals and sounds of the dialogue between the natives and Petra. What followed was long and painful, and Nick sort of reconstructed it in his head as if they were having a regular conversation in English:


    ¡°Hello, everyone. I am Nick. I was sick, now I am not sick.¡±


    ¡°Hello, Nick. I am Jenkins¡ªI am Oddball,¡± the aliens whose names Nick had mangled into ''Jenkins'' and ''Oddball'' replied.


    ¡°You learn English?¡±


    ¡°A little. You learn Kthufu?¡±


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    ¡°A very little,¡± Nick admitted. ¡°I am slow. Petra learn English and Kthufu.¡±


    ¡°Nick...who is Petra?¡± Jenkins asked.


    Nick sighed. ¡°That is hard to say. You...have clocks?¡± Then for a couple of minutes Nick worked to get across was a clock was, and learned the word in Kthufu. ¡°You have small clocks and big clocks? Big clocks do more?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Petra is a very, very, very, very big clock.¡±


    ¡°We don''t understand.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, me either, honestly.¡±


    ¡°Where are you from?¡± Jenkins asked.


    Nick explained a light-year to them, hoping he was getting it right, and said, ¡°My world, Earth, is about 1500 light years away.¡±


    ¡°Why are you here?¡± That one took a lot time to convey, but Nick was pretty sure he got it.


    ¡°By accident.¡±


    ¡°Can you go home?¡±


    ¡°Not now. I am...working on it. Slowly.¡±


    ¡°Are there more of you?¡±


    ¡°Just me, and Petra.¡±


    It took a while, but Nick slowly told them the story of how he had come to be on BigBall. The world was actually called Ooafa, but Nick kept thinking of it as BigBall. They had a million questions for him about Earth, but he kept to the basics.


    ¡°What about you? What happened to your world? Why is the Death Star so bright?¡±


    ¡°We do not know. It happened slowly, starting three years ago. Our crops died. Our people started to die. We took shelter where we could, but we are almost out of food.¡±


    ¡°I am glad you can eat my food, and I can eat yours.¡±


    ¡°So are we! Can you give us more food?¡±


    ¡°Yes. I will give you a printer¡ªit makes food. You will feed it water, and carbon, and some sticks I will give you, and it will make food that it knows how to make.¡±


    ¡°Knows?¡±


    Nick shrugged. ¡°Printer is very big, but Petra is very, very, very big. Complicated, I mean.¡± It took a while to explain that he didn''t mean that the printer was physically large at all.


    ¡°Nick, Monster 231 is ready,¡± Petra interrupted.


    ¡°Petra, rename Monster 231 ''food printer.''¡±


    ¡°Yes, Nick.¡±


    ¡°Start printing the feedstock ingots, please.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Nick. How many?¡±


    ¡°That''s a good question. How long does it take to print one ingot?¡±


    ¡°Two minutes, four seconds.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡±


    ¡°Yes, really, Nick.¡±


    ¡°Print one hundred feedstock ingots, please.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Nick.¡±


    I guess that will take five hours or so, then. He hashed out Earth time systems with the natives, and told them how long it would take before he could bring them the printer. He also demonstrated the air purifier and water purifier on camera, and explained about the solar panels.


    Nick had to take a break, because his brain was getting tired. He explained that, and told them about Earth''s twenty-four hour day, compared to Ooafa''s fourteen hours. Then he signed off, promising to bring them the supplies and devices the next day.


    I have a lot to think about.

 Chapter 62: Precautions

    When Nick woke up again, he felt a lot more rested, and kept tweaking his meds to stay in the good range. It was amazing, as always. It didn''t really change who he was, the way some of them could if you picked the wrong one. It just made him happier, even when he had the exact same thoughts. So, Nick was in a good mood when he considered an important idea.


    What kind of precautions should I be taking here?


    Nick knew that there were a lot of good people and a lot of bad people on Earth, and the difference often came down to when they last ate and slept, and whether they expected to be able to eat and sleep well in the future. It was just human nature. So, Nick expected the same would hold for them. What did they call themselves, again? When I said I was ¡°human¡±, they said...? Nick gave up and asked Petra.


    ¡°Fuak!a,¡± the AI responded.


    Right, fuakalas...close enough. I suspect fuakalas are nice people when they''re bellies are full and they aren''t scared. And these people are hungry and very, very scared. Plus, I''m the alien here. The probably consider me an invader. I certainly didn''t ask permission before showing up! Hah, I guess that makes me an illegal alien.


    So....what do I do about it?


    Nick thought it over, and came up with a plan. He knew what he wanted to build, but then that needed changes, and then those changes needed changes...Nick gave up and decided to cannibalize Petra''s dungeon for parts that he could replace later, rather than try to design something new. He didn''t want to take too long with this.


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    He printed a few parts that were quick to make, then loaded up Rockhunter and set out. He deliberately didn''t tell the natives when he was leaving or exactly when he expected to show up. He timed his departure so that the Death Star would be up when he arrived.


    Speaking only to Petra, Nick had some more lessons in Kthufu. After a couple of hours in transit, she conceded that he had acquired one percent of mastery of the language. To his great annoyance, half an hour later, Petra took it back. Apparently he had forgotten too much while taking a break. He hadn''t quite recovered it by the time he arrived at the native refuge.


    Nick looked around the area with Petra''s scanning abilities, and picked out a spot about a ten minute walk from the entrance to the silver mine. Taking a deep breath, Nick opened the door, letting in a blast of hot air. He sent the guys outside, then quickly closed up again. He explained to Petra what he wanted, then watched on the cameras while waiting for the temperature inside to return to a comfortable level.


    The guys got right to work, cutting up stone and building a small storage area out of bricks, just big enough to hold all the supplies and gear he had brought. The tricky bit was setting it up with air conditioning, but Petra was equal to the task once he explained what he wanted. After two hours, the stone box was nearly finished, and the Death Star was sinking in the west.


    Nick opened the door again, and set the guys to fetching and carrying his gifts for the natives, stacking them inside the box. Once that was done, the last step was to finish with a very thin, loose brick wall in place of a door. He adjusted the instructions slightly to leave visible seams on that side, to make it more obvious how to get in. Sometimes, Petra''s work was a little too good.


    Finally, a tiny camera went on top like a cherry, so he could watch and make sure they were getting the stuff without any issues. He brought the guys back inside and drove to the far side of a neighboring hill. Sighing, Nick settled down to wait for sunset.