Nick ended up taking Rockhunter. It was his car, after all; he'd built it with his own two hands. Admittedly, he was a little traumatized by the thought of climbing back inside the thing that had all but killed him, but he pushed through it. Get back on the horse, he told himself. It wasn't the car's fault.

A week had been long enough for him to be moving around on his own, even if a little bit slowly and carefully. He had thought through what provisions he needed to get himself started: a couple of days' worth of food and water, four of the little guys to excavate his new home, a few solar panels to get things running, one external battery, a lamp, and some ingots. Petra suggested a security bot and a medical bot when he asked, and Nick couldn't fault her choices, so those got squeezed in too.

He knew that the flying scanners would spot him when they passed by his new base, unless he went really far out. He didn't want to go a great distance away, though. So, he planned to go just a couple of hills away and dig in. He could walk back in less than a night if he needed to.

And he told Petra to edit the new base out of the scans.

She was the master control program for them, after all. He was proud of himself for thinking of the trick. People will believe a magic information source that's been working reliably, and stop double-checking it. They'll never suspect that I'm so close. Nick just had an instinct telling him not to get too far away.

He left an hour before sunset, telling Kathy that he planned to drive for at least a full day and then dig, and that he would be out of contact until he was well-settled. The trickiest part was trying to explain well enough to Petra so that she wouldn't spill the beans when Kathy asked how he was doing or where she was. He could only hope that he had managed it.

He used the on-board scanner to find out what elements were common in the different hills, and picked what he thought was a good spot. Then, the guys got to work.

The first room dug out was large, as it would become the garage that hid Rockhunter. Concealing the entrance would take a little while, but Petra had camouflage designs. It was a rough first couple of days—not as bad as the very beginning, but it definitely reminded him of his initial scramble to survive.

He got his first air purifier and dehumidifier running, and started printing solar panels for a good while. The battery had nearly been drained performing the initial excavation, and Nick wanted the battery refilled before he pushed for more. His experiences the first time around made building the new base go a lot smoother.

He celebrated each milestone: the first cup of water produced. The tunnel inward, and completing a second room. Air conditioning. His first print of a can of tuna—without the mercury this time. The first set of stairs down to Level 2. Step by step, Nick recreated Petra's "dungeon" without nearly so many mistakes.

He talked with Kathy, and sometimes Jenkins, Oddball, and Jenna too. It was actually easier for Nick to learn Kthufu from the fuakala than Galactic from Petra. Petra was getting pretty good at Kthufu, and he celebrated again when Petra's command of English topped fifty percent.

Days turned into weeks. The hunt for supplies of various elements went on. Nick was amused when he found a pretty large gold deposit. Back home, I would have been excited beyond belief. Here, it's just a surplus of an ingredient used in some devices. But hey, one less element to worry about.

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Thanksgiving arrived, and Nick had a lot to be grateful for. He had a new swimming pool, though it wasn't as big as the other one—for now. He had a stockpile of food, and his supply of ingots was growing steadily.

He missed the apple trees, but Petra showed him video from his arboretum whenever he wanted. It wasn't the same as being there in person, but maybe he could do something about that someday. Just about all the other comforts that he had developed the first time, he had again in his new home.

Christmas was hard. Nick found that he missed all the trappings of Christmas, even if he didn't have happy memories of family gatherings. He was able to string up Christmas lights and even made a few other decorations. But he missed the songs, the candy, the egg nog...and, of course, he missed his friends. He missed having other human beings to talk to.

Kathy and the rest were people, certainly, but...there was only so much they could replace humans for. They couldn't replace his human friends. And...he missed women. Human women. He missed sex, and dating, and making out, and hell, he would be thrilled to go on a long boring shopping trip to the mall with a girlfriend.

By the time New Year's Eve rolled around, Nick was profoundly depressed, meds or no meds.

What's the point? I'm all alone on an alien planet. I've got no way home. Kathy's grandkids might ride a starship out of here in search of greener pastures, but I'll be long since dead of old age. And I'm not sure I want to die of old age on this rock.

I want a sun I can walk under and enjoy the gentle warmth on my skin. I want an ocean breeze with the smell of salt and seaweed and fish. I want a forest I could get lost in. Hell, I want a snowbank to get chilly and soaked in.

I want steak, and pizza, and meatball subs, and chicken salad, and pretzels...Petra is doing her best, and I keep trying new recipes, and my diet is not quite as awful as it was six months ago...but...

...what's the point?

What am I living for? Studying? I can learn math and science until I'm sick of them, and that doesn't take very long. I suck at programming. I taught Petra chess and she kicks my ass. I taught Petra poker and she doesn't get bluffing.

If it weren't for Kathy and the rest of them, I'd have gone crazy a long time ago. And I admire their dedication to saving everyone they can and everything they can. They've got purpose. And I help them out where I can. That field trip to the ocean bed to dig up plants and stuff that hadn't gotten burned away by the Death Star yet—I helped them make their little ecosystem. It's looking better every day. I've got three apple trees. That's it. Nothing else from Earth.

Honestly, I kind of want to end it. But it would be really shitty for morale for the fuakalas, I think. They're barely hanging on and there's forty-nine of them. I'm alone. I don't want to go on living, but I sure as hell don't want to hurt Kathy and the rest of them that way.

Maybe I should OD on my brain meds. Who knows, maybe I'd die in a good mood? Maybe I'd even live, in a good mood. Too big a risk, though. Can't do that to them.

Shit.

Kathy's trying to figure out who owned Petra in the first place, before they gave her to me out of pity. She wants to know who was attacking them and why. It was kind of cool learning about alien civilizations for a while, but...I'm just...tired.

Maybe I should ask Petra to put me back in suspended animation for a while. Nick thought about that and shivered. Ugh, no, no, no. I can't imagine anything worse than waking up ten years in the future and Kathy and all of them are dead from something. Being all alone on the planet, again.

Nick's mind wandered aimlessly.

Why did the Death Star get that way? What happened to it?

Why did all those fuakalas have to die? Why did their world have to die like this? What kind of sick God would allow this to happen?

How do I keep on going? How do I keep on living, on this world? How can I stand it?

Nick told Petra to continue helping the fuakalas, but to leave his microphone, camera, and comm input off. Alone, in the dark and quiet, Nick lay in his bed, wishing he could sleep.

Tomorrow's a new year, I guess. Maybe something good will happen. Maybe tomorrow, I'll find a reason to live.

Nick finally dropped off to sleep, alone and miserable.

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