Inside the dome, more of B-412's silent friends wait in their bunks, at the mess tables, and by the airlock doors.

Now that the sun has gone past the horizon, there isn't enough light to recharge B-412's solar cells to sustain its rock counting missions. To conserve energy, B-412 will have to stay in the dome and go into maintenance mode until later in the cycle when the sun peeks back around the other side of the moon.

Beyond the dome's glass, the only light is the glowing crescent of Earth reflecting sunlight along it's edge. 133 rotations ago, the blue planet glowed with the lights from thousands of cities, but they've long since gone dark.

B-412 rolls up to a robotics bay next to other B units who are as silent as the dome's humans residents. As B-412's mind begins to slow into maintenance mode, a thought occurs.

The Moon is lonely.

@sffwords such a sad little story. Very evocative. Poor little rover.

@TootSerials thanks! I felt bad for the little bot while I was writing it 😅

@sffwords maybe it will work out how to reproduce itself and create a roving civilization of information seeking bots

@TootSerials 😄 oh yea. Or it'll be like Wall-E and B-412 will get found by another bot and fall in love 😍

@sffwords an happy ending is possible.

@sffwords aww, poor bot. (Poor lunar colony too, )

@LilFluff aw yea, poor little fella needs a friend