Free Bootstrap Colony by Chris Hechtl

out of the mud,”
Mitch ordered. The robot complied. Once on its feet Andy eight began listing
damage. “Report to cave for hibernation until repairs can be done,” Mitch
sighed, then watched it limp off to the cave. “All droid units now restricted
to caves during wet weather,” he ordered. A beep acknowledged the order.
    The GP robot picked its load up
and went about its business. He really should go to the cave and make repairs
to the robots. That was the third Andy down. He still had the ED to patch as
well.
    The urge to keep busy was strong,
but he also felt the urge to just relax. He had been going all out for the past
sixteen months. Four months of intense work with the businesses and engineering
the Andy robots, then prepping for this trip had seen many eighteen or twenty
hour days, and of course not a single day off. He knew he needed the break, but
wasn’t sure if he could afford the time. He petted the cat, sighed as he looked
up at the sky and closed his eyes, vowing only a couple more hours for the
break.
    Fortunately the day before he had
finished the chicken coups and enclosures, the broiler birds were all in
semi-outdoor enclosures instead of in the tight confines of the transport
cages. The turkeys had been a bit of a pain, the first attempt at enclosing
them had led to one of them almost getting out in a flurry of feathers. Even
though they were breast heavy they still had wings, and some apparently liked
to fly, or at least attempt it from time to time. His hasty fix had saved the
day, but he knew it might not be good enough for some of the other animals.
    The geese enclosure had been
retrofitted to extend the door all the way up, and fencing had been wired over
the open area. They were probably living up the rain; he knew they liked it
better than the other fowl. Hogs too for that matter. The dogs would be a mess
though. He sighed, petting Hera. She was gravid, and in her condition she
constantly begged for attention and petting whenever he entered the mobile
home. It was going to get interesting when she and the other cats began to drop
litters, hell the large animals would be interesting too. They were going to
need their own birthing areas soon.
    It had been nearly a week since
the raptor attack, it still bothered him from time to time, but the pain of
grief had faded into a dull ache. It felt weird, mourning someone he had never
known, and would never know. “At least someone would,” he sighed, and then
returned to the laptop. His first cheese attempt had been a messy affair; he
had ended up feeding the curds to the hogs. The second attempt had yielded a
better batch, and was aging now. He had enough milk to do one batch a week now.
The butter had turned out okay; he had forgotten the salt though so it was only
good for cooking.
    That was another thing, he needed
to get out and explore. He needed a lot of raw material, salt, iron, copper,
carbon, and just about everything else. But right now his main priorities were
gravel, sand, limestone, and clay for the roads and concrete.
    There was a sandbank further downstream,
most likely formed when the crushing water dug into the rocks, pulverizing them
and washing them downstream. Clay he had seen in the gully six point five
kilometers away. Gravel was something else, he didn’t want the feldspar rocks
the combine and tractors were turning up regularly, and he needed a hard rock
like granite.
    Limestone was the kicker; the
black rock was useful in many applications. Cooked into a white paste it became
purified calcium carbonate, perfect for many building applications like mortar,
cement, quicklime, and concrete. There was limestone a plenty in the caves, he
just wasn’t sure about digging it. He wasn’t a structural engineer, tunneling
into something like the network of caverns was not something he was too happy
about trying. The threat of a cave in was not something he wanted.
    When the afternoon sun broke out
he sighed in relief. “Finally!”