Ship's Holog: June 2078, fragment #18

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.

As the Coop Manager continued speaking, I began to feel somewhat relieved. “I mean, you know, in our attempt to meet customer needs, we just want to be sure that we’ll always have enough of what you need. So, for example, if you’re using some of these items, like---uhm, let’s see, uhm… 50 packages of powdered milk--- to prepare large quantities of something, say pies for resale at a Regional Agricultural Fair, we’d like to know. Uhm… that way we can better predict inventory needs in future, and besides we’d give you a reseller’s discount.”

That sounded reasonable enough, a sort of customer service concern. But, I still had to be careful. I responded with the explanation we had worked out ahead of time for just such a contingency. “Oh, that? Well, as a matter of fact, the reason for the large quantities is that we’re having a big family reunion next week and we’re expecting a couple of hundred clan members from all over New Vermont to come.”

That seemed to go over well with her, or at least, I thought it did from her enthusiastic reaction. “No kidding? That sounds great!” But my heart sank again, when she began to probe further, “ Is that something you do every year? Just so we can project inventory like I said.”

I was not at all reassured by her repetition of inventory concerns. It sounded rehearsed to me. Luckily, we’d anticipated this line of questioning, and I responded as we’d agreed I would, “No, we only do it every five years or so.”

We didn’t want the authorities checking a year from now to see if we were having another reunion, only to find that we were nowhere to be found in New Vermont. As it is, I began to be concerned that they might carry out a holo-surve of our valley community later in the week to see if our alleged reunion was indeed taking place. Since I’d had to use the reunion explanation, we would certainly have to implement our contingency plan— a very public holocom to hundreds of our family members notifying them of the “cancellation” of the supposed family reunion due to my grandmother’s serious illness.

But, apparently the manager was buying my story, or at least she was going to let me go for the time being while the Authorities checked on it, because she said, “Oh…O.K. Well, I see you want us to debit your order from your finance account. No problem. Just look into the charge-cam here. O.K., now, uhm… How were you going to uhm… transport all this stuff? It’s obviously too much for you to carry.”

Relieved that I was going to make it out of the Coop at least, I explained, “Yes. My son, Marco, will be by in a bit to pick it up with a wagon. If you could have it set out on the loading dock, he’ll be able to manage it from there.”