Hi, Uncas, here. At 22, I’m one of the youngsters of the crew and, to my family’s dismay, I’m still single. Back in the valley where they live, people are usually married in their teens and have started their own families by the time they’re my age. But, even after living in Burlington these past eight years, I just haven’t found the right partner and, as my great-grandmother probably told you, I can’t go back to the valley to live until I get hitched up. I suspect that was one of the reasons they asked me to go on this expedition. They’re probably hoping I’ll find a mate along the way. Maybe I will. Who knows?
Meanwhile, this is my chance to say goodbye to my pals here in Burlington. Of course, I can’t let on to them where and why I’m going. At the same time, though, I have to give them and my boss some plausible reason for my leaving town. My Grey-Gramma and I cooked up a pretty good story that I hope I can make convincing. In any case, that’s my assignment for this stopover: letting people here know that I’m leaving for a while.
Ship's Holog: June 2078, fragment #31
For security reasons, the following segment and all other italicized passages in the transcript of this holog were excised for security reasons by the crew of the Veritas from their original holocoms in 2078. They were restored some 25 years later when the voyages of the Veritas no longer needed to be kept secret due to the significant changes that took place in world government in 2102.
Hi there! Uncas, again. Glad to have you with me.
My first stop is the ice factory in Mallett’s Bay where I’ve worked for the past few years. This is where, in winter, we cut out the millions of huge ice blocks that are used throughout the year by the one million or so residents of Burlington. As you might suppose, summer isn’t a real busy time of year for us. Dispensing ice is far less labor-intensive than harvesting it. That’s why, in summer, those of us who work here, take our vacations, rotating so there’s always enough workers to deliver ice to the restaurants and housing complexes that order it. That’s how I was able to slip off for the last few weeks to help launch the ship in the lower lake. But, I’m due back from vacation at the beginning of the next work-week (Tuesday), so I have to hand in my resignation today.
Now, I'm entering the small warm-up room, where by, government regulation, us ice men spend 15 minutes out of every hour, warming up. It’s supposed to keep us from getting hypothermia. Even though we dress in layers, you can still get pretty darn cold in the ice complex down below. The work we do there isn’t as active as you might think. There’s very little physical work involved. We do almost all our cutting, lifting, and shipping with hydraulic tools and lifts. So, we’re mainly pushing buttons and pulling levers. Here's one of my co-workers, sitting by the solar stove, warming his feet and hands and playing solitaire.
“Hey, Carlito, is Big Joe around?”
“Hey man! Long time no see. Where you been?”
“Oh, me and my cousin, we took a couple-week canoe trip over in the Maine lakes of the Iroquois Nation.”
Lying to Carlito is no big deal for me; he isn’t really one of my close friends. When it comes to my friends, it's going to be a whole lot harder, but totally necessary. My pals and I are real tight and honesty with each other is one of the things that keeps us that way. Still, we can't take any risks.
“Decent, man! That’s cool. Seen any Injuns?”
None of my buddies would ever say anything like that to me. For one thing, many of us, like me, are part Native American and we don’t appreciate being called Injuns. Also, my buddies are just plain more respectful of people than the average Joe is.
“Yeah, we met up with a couple of Iroquois. Fished some with ‘em. Good people. They don’t like to be called Injuns, you know.”
“Cool it man. I was just playin’ with you. I know you an’ yours are real P.C. I’ve met a few Iroquois, myself and they was alright.”
No point in debating with Carlito. He is who he is. Nothing I say is going to change him and, as a co-worker, he pulls his load, so I really don’t have much to complain about. If I got in to an argument with everyone I encountered whose values differed from mine, I’d be constantly arguing.
“Yeah, well, anyway. Is Big Joe around?
“Sure. I think he’s down at the main shed, double-checkin’ inventory. Been a real hot summer so far and we lost quite a bit of ice. I think the cat’s uptight we gonna’ run out afore winter.”
“Hmm… O.K. Thanks, Carlito. Hasta luego!”
Whew! He seemed to buy the canoe trip story.
Hi there! Uncas, again. Glad to have you with me.
My first stop is the ice factory in Mallett’s Bay where I’ve worked for the past few years. This is where, in winter, we cut out the millions of huge ice blocks that are used throughout the year by the one million or so residents of Burlington. As you might suppose, summer isn’t a real busy time of year for us. Dispensing ice is far less labor-intensive than harvesting it. That’s why, in summer, those of us who work here, take our vacations, rotating so there’s always enough workers to deliver ice to the restaurants and housing complexes that order it. That’s how I was able to slip off for the last few weeks to help launch the ship in the lower lake. But, I’m due back from vacation at the beginning of the next work-week (Tuesday), so I have to hand in my resignation today.
Now, I'm entering the small warm-up room, where by, government regulation, us ice men spend 15 minutes out of every hour, warming up. It’s supposed to keep us from getting hypothermia. Even though we dress in layers, you can still get pretty darn cold in the ice complex down below. The work we do there isn’t as active as you might think. There’s very little physical work involved. We do almost all our cutting, lifting, and shipping with hydraulic tools and lifts. So, we’re mainly pushing buttons and pulling levers. Here's one of my co-workers, sitting by the solar stove, warming his feet and hands and playing solitaire.
“Hey, Carlito, is Big Joe around?”
“Hey man! Long time no see. Where you been?”
“Oh, me and my cousin, we took a couple-week canoe trip over in the Maine lakes of the Iroquois Nation.”
Lying to Carlito is no big deal for me; he isn’t really one of my close friends. When it comes to my friends, it's going to be a whole lot harder, but totally necessary. My pals and I are real tight and honesty with each other is one of the things that keeps us that way. Still, we can't take any risks.
“Decent, man! That’s cool. Seen any Injuns?”
None of my buddies would ever say anything like that to me. For one thing, many of us, like me, are part Native American and we don’t appreciate being called Injuns. Also, my buddies are just plain more respectful of people than the average Joe is.
“Yeah, we met up with a couple of Iroquois. Fished some with ‘em. Good people. They don’t like to be called Injuns, you know.”
“Cool it man. I was just playin’ with you. I know you an’ yours are real P.C. I’ve met a few Iroquois, myself and they was alright.”
No point in debating with Carlito. He is who he is. Nothing I say is going to change him and, as a co-worker, he pulls his load, so I really don’t have much to complain about. If I got in to an argument with everyone I encountered whose values differed from mine, I’d be constantly arguing.
“Yeah, well, anyway. Is Big Joe around?
“Sure. I think he’s down at the main shed, double-checkin’ inventory. Been a real hot summer so far and we lost quite a bit of ice. I think the cat’s uptight we gonna’ run out afore winter.”
“Hmm… O.K. Thanks, Carlito. Hasta luego!”
Whew! He seemed to buy the canoe trip story.
Ship's Holog: June 2078, fragment #32
For security reasons, the following segment and all other italicized passages in the transcript of this holog were excised for security reasons by the crew of the Veritas from their original holocoms in 2078. They were restored some 25 years later when the voyages of the Veritas no longer needed to be kept secret due to the significant changes that took place in world government in 2102.
It's still me, Uncas,
Now let’s see how my boss, Joe Tanaka, reacts to my resigning. As you can see, there’s very little visible above ground here in the ice factory. All the ice is kept in huge underground, super-insulated storage areas. Here’s the door to the main shed. I’m going to just slip on these insulated freezer duds. Now, we go through a series of halls and stairways, each guarded by small, insulated enclosures that minimize heat loss as people walk through. See, after we open and close the heavy insulated sliding door into this compartment, we have to wait a few minutes to let the solar-powered heat pump/humidifier replace any water vapor we may have let out and extract any heat we may have let in.
O.K. Now we can open this next sliding door and move into this hallway. Jeeze, I hope Joe isn’t too far down. I’ve lost some of my cold-resistance the two weeks I’ve been gone and I don’t have my usual layers on, so I’m feeling the cold.
Great! I see a light on in the next hallway. Joe must be in there. None too soon. I’m freezing. Let’s look through this peephole. Sure enough, there’s Joe and he’s got a peephole open to one of the storage bins, checking the height of the ice in it to see how much is left and how much has been lost to melting and evaporation. O.K. Here goes.
“Hey, Joe. What’s happenin,’ man?
“Oh, it’s you. What are you doing here today? You’re not supposed to be back until Tuesday.”
“Always glad to see me, aren’t you, Joe?”
“Aww, it’s not that… I’m in a pretty foul mood, I guess. The inventory’s got me pretty worried. I don’t think we’re gonna’ make it this year. Hate to do it, but we may have to import.”
“Gee, that’s a shame, Joe. Where you gonna’ import from?”
“Not sure. Gotta’ get on the holosphere and find out where there might be excess inventory. I hope it doesn’t have to be from too far away. The further it has to go, the more it’ll cost and the more we’ll lose in transit. I heard they had a pretty long winter and relatively cool summer up in New Foundland. Maybe I can get some from there. They can probably use the money.”
“Well, good luck, Joe. Uhm…what I mean is… uhm… the reason I came in today was to tell you I’m quitting... I’m not coming back next week.”
“Well, I’ll be… what’s the story? You getting’ married and heading back to the valley or something?”
When Joe said this, I wished Grey-Gramma and I had thought of that as a reason. It seemed so simple! But, as she pointed out to me later, it was too simple and could too easily fall apart. What if Joe or any of my friends wanted to come to my wedding or happened to come down to the valley to visit me and my wife…well, luckily I had decided to stick with our original story even though it was more complicated.
“Naw, Joe. I still haven’t found me a wife, But, maybe I've got something even better: a job down in New York City, a real good job.”
“You mean, you’re going to live in the lower 10? That’ll be quite a change! How’d you swing it? I didn’t think the new US of A was letting foreigners take jobs.”
“Well, my grandfather actually arranged it. He’s still got contacts down there from when he went to Medical School in Massachusetts before the Great Change. Anyway, he was able to convince them that, as a country boy, I’ve got some special skills they need in the Big City. Seems like they’ve been having a peck of trouble with country kids running away to the City and then getting into all kinds of trouble. So, they’re trying to put together a team of kind of undercover agents who’ll infiltrate and maybe turn these kids’ heads around, get them to go home. Well, they’re reluctant to use country people from the region— Massachusetts, upstate New York, and New Jersey— because they might be known by the kids to be straight arrows who can’t be trusted. So, anyway, it seems like I’ll be going underground for the next few years.”
“Wow, sounds like it could be dangerous. Pay good?”
“Yeah, pay’s great! And, as for danger, you know I kinda’ crave it… always have. Besides, maybe I’ll meet one of them hot country babes from down country and I’ll finally get me a wife. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you it’s Sayonara, Baby.”
“O.K., thanks for letting me know. Some of them up there would just disappear and leave me to figure out they’d quit. But, I always knew I could count on you being straight with me. Good luck in your new career, Mr. 007.”
“Thanks, but I’m not going to be a spy, just an undercover psych agent.”
“Whatever. See ya, bud!”
It's still me, Uncas,
Now let’s see how my boss, Joe Tanaka, reacts to my resigning. As you can see, there’s very little visible above ground here in the ice factory. All the ice is kept in huge underground, super-insulated storage areas. Here’s the door to the main shed. I’m going to just slip on these insulated freezer duds. Now, we go through a series of halls and stairways, each guarded by small, insulated enclosures that minimize heat loss as people walk through. See, after we open and close the heavy insulated sliding door into this compartment, we have to wait a few minutes to let the solar-powered heat pump/humidifier replace any water vapor we may have let out and extract any heat we may have let in.
O.K. Now we can open this next sliding door and move into this hallway. Jeeze, I hope Joe isn’t too far down. I’ve lost some of my cold-resistance the two weeks I’ve been gone and I don’t have my usual layers on, so I’m feeling the cold.
Great! I see a light on in the next hallway. Joe must be in there. None too soon. I’m freezing. Let’s look through this peephole. Sure enough, there’s Joe and he’s got a peephole open to one of the storage bins, checking the height of the ice in it to see how much is left and how much has been lost to melting and evaporation. O.K. Here goes.
“Hey, Joe. What’s happenin,’ man?
“Oh, it’s you. What are you doing here today? You’re not supposed to be back until Tuesday.”
“Always glad to see me, aren’t you, Joe?”
“Aww, it’s not that… I’m in a pretty foul mood, I guess. The inventory’s got me pretty worried. I don’t think we’re gonna’ make it this year. Hate to do it, but we may have to import.”
“Gee, that’s a shame, Joe. Where you gonna’ import from?”
“Not sure. Gotta’ get on the holosphere and find out where there might be excess inventory. I hope it doesn’t have to be from too far away. The further it has to go, the more it’ll cost and the more we’ll lose in transit. I heard they had a pretty long winter and relatively cool summer up in New Foundland. Maybe I can get some from there. They can probably use the money.”
“Well, good luck, Joe. Uhm…what I mean is… uhm… the reason I came in today was to tell you I’m quitting... I’m not coming back next week.”
“Well, I’ll be… what’s the story? You getting’ married and heading back to the valley or something?”
When Joe said this, I wished Grey-Gramma and I had thought of that as a reason. It seemed so simple! But, as she pointed out to me later, it was too simple and could too easily fall apart. What if Joe or any of my friends wanted to come to my wedding or happened to come down to the valley to visit me and my wife…well, luckily I had decided to stick with our original story even though it was more complicated.
“Naw, Joe. I still haven’t found me a wife, But, maybe I've got something even better: a job down in New York City, a real good job.”
“You mean, you’re going to live in the lower 10? That’ll be quite a change! How’d you swing it? I didn’t think the new US of A was letting foreigners take jobs.”
“Well, my grandfather actually arranged it. He’s still got contacts down there from when he went to Medical School in Massachusetts before the Great Change. Anyway, he was able to convince them that, as a country boy, I’ve got some special skills they need in the Big City. Seems like they’ve been having a peck of trouble with country kids running away to the City and then getting into all kinds of trouble. So, they’re trying to put together a team of kind of undercover agents who’ll infiltrate and maybe turn these kids’ heads around, get them to go home. Well, they’re reluctant to use country people from the region— Massachusetts, upstate New York, and New Jersey— because they might be known by the kids to be straight arrows who can’t be trusted. So, anyway, it seems like I’ll be going underground for the next few years.”
“Wow, sounds like it could be dangerous. Pay good?”
“Yeah, pay’s great! And, as for danger, you know I kinda’ crave it… always have. Besides, maybe I’ll meet one of them hot country babes from down country and I’ll finally get me a wife. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you it’s Sayonara, Baby.”
“O.K., thanks for letting me know. Some of them up there would just disappear and leave me to figure out they’d quit. But, I always knew I could count on you being straight with me. Good luck in your new career, Mr. 007.”
“Thanks, but I’m not going to be a spy, just an undercover psych agent.”
“Whatever. See ya, bud!”
Ship's Holog: June 2078, fragment #33
It's me again: Uncas.
My story about getting a job in New York City seems to have worked with my boss at the ice factory, so I'm hopeful that it will work with my buddies, as well. I hate lying to them, but I know it's necessary. I guess the best way to catch most of my friends will be to check out the club scene tonight. Since our ship isn’t sailing until daybreak that will give me six or seven hours on the town. But, if I'm going to put in an all-nighter and keep my story straight while doing some pretty heavy drinking, I figure I ought to take a nap back home--- well actually at my great uncle and aunt’s where I’ve been living for the past eight years.
Whew! I slept for three-hours and then had a bite to eat with my uncle and aunt, who are really more like my parents than uncle and aunt. I was real sorry to have to say goodbye to them after all the years they’ve raised me and I could tell they were sorry, too. Both of ‘em cried when they hugged me g'bye. At least I didn't need to lie to them about where I was going. They are part of the plan.
My story about getting a job in New York City seems to have worked with my boss at the ice factory, so I'm hopeful that it will work with my buddies, as well. I hate lying to them, but I know it's necessary. I guess the best way to catch most of my friends will be to check out the club scene tonight. Since our ship isn’t sailing until daybreak that will give me six or seven hours on the town. But, if I'm going to put in an all-nighter and keep my story straight while doing some pretty heavy drinking, I figure I ought to take a nap back home--- well actually at my great uncle and aunt’s where I’ve been living for the past eight years.
Whew! I slept for three-hours and then had a bite to eat with my uncle and aunt, who are really more like my parents than uncle and aunt. I was real sorry to have to say goodbye to them after all the years they’ve raised me and I could tell they were sorry, too. Both of ‘em cried when they hugged me g'bye. At least I didn't need to lie to them about where I was going. They are part of the plan.
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