#87: Weldon: Cleaning Barges

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Chuck was amazed “Fluffy sucks up coal faster than I suck up beer. It’s incredible.”

Weldon tried to appear to be annoyed. “I wish she would hurry up. I want the balloon payment paid off and a thousand hours on the ticker before we start making our own SSmoke. I’ll watch her for now.”

“In the meantime check with your crew. Tell them the situation, bring em up to speed. You’re the Foreman, hire em or fire em as you please. Pay them what’s reasonable. I’ll either ok it later or fire the lot of you.” Weldon Grinned “You’re the foreman. I’m merely the owner.”

“Have someone spell me in about ten hours. I’ll watch Fluffy and figure out what we’re going to do between now and then. We need someone riding herd on her constantly.” he said

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Ten hours went faster than expected. Weldon had been watching Fluffy. Fluffy was a machine in more ways than one. She turned coal into diamond. Weldon was impressed. He’d called his family and they’d done a quite a bit of planning. He was almost surprised when John arrived.

“Hi Mr. Weldon. I understand that you’re the new Boss. Chuck told me that I’m working for you now. He told me you’d tell me what to do.” John said.

Weldon shook hands with him. “That’s correct. I’m really glad to see you. I didn’t realize how tired I was until just now. Your job number one is to watch Fluffy. It’s kinda boring actually. I admit it was rather interesting the first time she gave birth to a bird, I think it was a bird, it flew away. The fascination faded after that rather quickly however.”



“Presumably it went to wherever Shelby wants his Diamonds. I assume that when the birds (or whatever they are) stop flying flying away then it’ll start producing our SSmoke.” he said.

“That’s all you have to do today. Just ride herd on the robot.” Weldon said “ Enjoy it. After today we’ll be busy.”

“Yessir Boss. I got it under control.” John said.

Weldon floated off. He stopped at Ernie's for a quick snack then went to his barge to bring his family up to speed.

Weldon made plans for the FM (farm module) to be implemented as soon as Fluffy made it available. Chuck took care of details. So it went, 24/7, until the Balloon was paid and a thousand hours credit was built up.

“Lucky this thing births an “hour’s worth” of Smoke Crystal in about twenty minutes, when it’s eating Coal” Chuck said a few days later “I figure we’ll be done this shift.”

“Already done” Weldon said “You forgot the Bonus. These guys are ours.”



“Yeah. I did forget the bonus.“ Chuck admitted. “Now what?”

“Same song different verse” Weldon said “the only difference now is that it makes SCrystal for us instead for Shelby. We need to get this barge cleaned out as quickly as possible. I checked on the Banana Slugs farm before I came over here. The gang is keeping it still slurping along. You’re doing a great job.”

“Sure thing Boss” Chuck said. “Thanks”

So it went. It seemed to take forEVER to empty that first three thousand ton barge. They couldn’t do anything with it until it was empty and cleaned out. Until then they managed to keep the BananaSlug farm operating although Gnu only knew how. The place was a Kludge that had been wrecked several times.

The day finally arrived when Fluffy was transferred to another barge. They had regiments of SSmoke Avatars and an empty barge.

“Now’s when it get’s interesting” Weldon said “Here’s what we’re gonna do.”

Weldon, Chuck and the crew worked like crazy men for the next week or so. They were doing three jobs at once.

One: They were keeping the Banana Slug’s antiquated systems working. Especially the Aquaponics.


Yeah. Pretty funny but people liked to eat.

Two: They were building a completely NEW system with much more capacity per cubic foot, in the empty barge. At the same time they were modifying the barge to suite the requirements.



Three: They were also keeping an eye on Fluffy as he cleaned out yet another barge. That turned out not to be hard. Fluffy seemed happy as a pig in mud and happily munched coal and turned it into SCrystal.


All of them worked full, productive days and went home, tired and well satisfied with a days work well done. Not to mention money. Chuck and the crew were raking in the overtime. Weldon was just the owner. He didn’t get a check.

There came a day, incredibly soon after they started. That they were done with the first barge. It was producing food. Then one after another the capacity from the Banana Slug was transferred. Then finally it was done. They were completely transferred over. The only food makers left on the Banana Slug was Carl’s Ranches

Nope. Carl had seen which way the wind was blowing and he’d done the same thing. He had his animals well bedded down in barges of their own.

Shelby had been keeping an eye on all of them. Several hundred eyes in fact. He kept an eye on everything in the immediate area. He used his ‘no-see-em’ surveillance network of cyber-mites among other resources. Anyone who wanted privacy could take countermeasures. Everyone knew that. Most people either didn’t care or forgot.

A lack of planning on your part.
does NOT
Constitute an Emergency on MY part.

Was Shelby's motto

Weldon believed that one too.

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The Next Episode Is
#88:Weldon: Farming in a Barge…
The Previous Episode was
#86: Weldon: You're fired.…
The First Episode was
# 1 : Prologue…
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Book One: SoulStone
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