Melting Robots – Zachary “freefall” Vitruvian.  August 27^th, 2374 The Dark Side of Mercury 

Hello fellow citizens of the Solar System Alliance.  I am filing this story so you can know how your taxes are being spent. To wit, three of the most reliable robots, designed to take intense heat, seemed to have malfunctioned recently.  The results look like an early abstract sculpture. 

Three terribly expensive CreyTel Robots, huddling arm in arm, as they melted into an intermingled pool of metal. 

“This was a test run on this new model.”  Said George Mittleton, the base commander. “We wanted to take the robots between the light and dark side of the termination line.  The difference in temperatures is thousands of degrees.  It might have fried some circuits, causing them to stray too far sunny-side.” 

I thought I might as well investigate, so I looked over some of the footage and notes.  The living modules on Mercury are not too bad as far as Space-Homes Incorporated standards are concerned.   It's generally warm, and the windows are generous.  Maybe it’s Mercury itself. A desolate, moon like crater ridden planet, that is all about extremes. 

The hellish closeness of the sun is stunning and frightening.  How could anything that huge be contained?  They say it's due to gravity, but that doesn’t comfort me in my current proximity. 

After two days of snooping around and getting the cold shoulder, I had a few friendly drinks with the cook.  I’ll let him tell it in his own words: “Those crazy-asses re-programmed the robots to go sunnyside and collect rocks, you know the melted kind that are so popular nowadays, then they sell'em in cyberspace. They got greedy, and the ‘bots melted like fondu.” 

So, it won’t be long until a new staff occupies these quarters, and I’m sure they won’t be tempted to cross the line.  That is until the next generation robot shows up, and they get to test its metal against the forces of commerce…I mean nature. 

Freefall Vitruvian