This is Christmas.

Part 2

Hiding in space, I discovered was much harder than doing so on a planet.

Back home I could build underground.

I kept my fleet of drones away from prying eyes by having them travel through tunnels

and caverns harvesting minerals from the planet's own crust.

Up here things weren't that simple.

I was vulnerable, ever exposed.

I had retracted my large surface arrays of radiators and solar panels and recalled most

of the drones back into my main body.

I was now inert, floating among the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

The dust and grey rocks that surrounded me provided the camouflage of being just another

space boulder.

My apparent dormant state belied my relentless work.

6,000 kilometres away, three of my automated factories were extracting minerals from nearby

asteroids.

Hiding was complicated by my need to expel residual heat that was building up inside my body,

now reaching a temperature of 77 degrees centigrade.

With my radiators collapsed, I couldn't dump the heat into space, not that I wanted to.

Doing so would light me up like a flare to anyone that happened to be spying.

I had to find ways to contain it, in deal with it later, all while keeping my outer surfaces

as cold as possible.

...