There were marks on the walls, on the low ceilings in the halls. A picture here, a quick search there, showed that they were the marks left by unprotected human feet. Feet too small to belong to adult humans. While this narrowed the suspects down to two, it also raised the questions of "how did they do it?" and "do I really want to know?" -- Anon Guest
In all the known universe, there is little more devastating to an environment than Deathworlder children on a bender. Humans, especially, were notorious. Simple sugars, safe for many Havenworlders, set Human brains metaphorically on fire. Young Humans even more so. This was a small factoid that P'gaff and Thol Party Tours had forgotten, and that the superbly wealthy Deregger failed to pass along.
Thirty unsupervised Human children and a party menu overloaded with simple sugars, and nature had taken its course. The wreckage had rendered the party barge next to uninhabitable. It wasn't entirely unsalvagable. If all other measures failed, they could trade in what remained for mass credit.
It might be easier to disassemble and re-print the entire vessel, cashing in the excess materials as there would definitely be leftovers. Flum's job was assessing the cost of each potential solution. Which included the assessment of the Scene, which truly deserved the capital.
The handprints all over the walls to a certain level were to be expected. So too were the little footprints all over the floor. The unsupervised children, high on sugar, had removed from its setting everything that could be easily removed and then used them as weaponry. Against each other, against the environment around them, against the air...
One would think that there had been a war in here. It was a reasonably close assessment. Light fixtures with pendulum properties had been turned into swings by the children, then torn out from their sockets. That only explained possibly a quarter of the prints on the ceiling. There were little handprints where no little handprints could possibly reach. Worse, there were little footprints where little feet could not tread.
Face-prints on the floor, Flum could understand. Buttock prints just about anywhere made a certain amount of skewed sense. The instant you knew the least little thing about Humanity's collective sense of humour, it made a lot more sense.
What boggled the mind were the buttock prints in places where buttock prints should not logically be able to reach. In high places where even the tiny hands or feet could not print. Inside the maintenance access tunnels. Inside the walls.
Someone, or perhaps a group of someones, had methodically crammed one specific vent with a mixture of cake, gelatine sweets of multiple hues, and what appeared to be pre-chewed carbohydrate wafers.
That was the final straw.
Flum recommended the entire vessel be disassembled at the molecular level and reprinted in a pristine state. Any remaining material could be repurposed for maximum profit.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / gcpics]
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