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.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
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.
