Making their way through the floating clouds of exhausted and happy clerks honestly was putting Pylo in a pretty good mood. Sure she only was able to get a few coherent sentences out of the jubilation blasted wrecks of their various bodies before they settled into a deep torpor

But for those nice short exchanges everyone involved was in a pretty good mood. And afterwards they were just too deep in hibernation to give trustworthy testimony.

It was by the means of these many many many interviews that they kept meandering around and around in a winding knotted path through the district. Sometimes ▙◀ tried to predict which way the path was going and jump ahead. But as many times as that actually worked it ended up losing the trail of witnesses.

Apparently where the infosphere run security and oversight mechanisms had been clogged and disrupted to uselessness the delightful personality of her passengers had left a strong enough impression to guide Pylo in her quest.

“The devastation, Petalweft is going to be completely behind with its production orders... All the needs and means will have to be audited and rebalanced with all their neighbors... I dare say we might even have a draw on the famine reserves! This is a DISASTER!”

A girl honestly could only take so much of that whining though. The External Affairs representative had been wailing and crying about how awful and disastrous this impromptu festival was and how horribly her passengers had ruined the local markets.

Pylo however could barely see the connection, honestly of all the things that were being blamed on her passengers the only thing that seemed even remotely their fault was the injuries and damages to that one sensory artist specialist with the perforated interior and sterilized eco-cosm.

It was worse than the near magical leaps of connection the urban box assemblage ▙◀ had come to regarding the explosive wreckage and ruin. At least with that if she took it very slowly and had someone explaining it step by step she could see the hints of how the Passengers could be connected to how horrifying the damage was.

But how precisely was it their fault for stirring up a little celebration?

If she coulden’t taste the sincerity in everyone involved Pylo was sure this whole thing had to be a trick to try and make her look bad.

But she could tell that they really did mean that they saw what they said.

Pylo however felt like she was groping blind on the whole concept. And although she was not going to admit it to anyone here that rather bothered her.

Blame and responsibility should be obvious and simple, it was something she prided herself on that she always paid her debts. She had lived the majority of her career as a Tunie’s crew with the pride that she followed the standards and practices of proper Trader conduct.

That she never did anything to even bring the idea of a tribunal into question on her interaction with Ports or her fellow traders.

And now she found herself in a morass of people who were all utterly certain she or at least her passengers must have done something unspeakably wrong. But she could not see how the blame fell on any of them.

All she had to go on was the sentiment and fear of those around her being genuine.

Okay to be fair she only actually had two people making up the morass, and really of those two only one is actually utterly convinced she and the passengers are in the wrong.

The pile of boxes with a hybrid resonance circuits and symbiotic gel for a thinking substrate was pretty calm and helpful. Not judgemental at all. Just calmly sort of observing and it seemed to observe passively that Pylo’s passengers were instigators of some massive complex web of interactions that lead to this ‘disaster’.

But the coral tender from the ministry of external affairs? She was wound so tight with angst and judgemental twinges over it all Pylo felt like the little scrub was trying to flay the siren over every single misfortune befalling Petalweft Salts.

Which was honestly the main reason Pylo was focusing on the ditzy celebration drunk clerks that were left cuddling each other in drifting piles.

Every single one of those had either no comprehension of her passengers or seemed to view them in glowing adoration and appreciation.

Pylo honestly liked them better like this.

The representative of the Ministry of external affairs worried pylo though, especially since they were consistently passing messages and receiving orders from presumably their central offices.

It made her nervous.

“Hey Tunie how are you doing out there? They aren't getting clingy or anything right? No one prying into your holds?”

“⎌ ▃ ▞▁▇⌒◺⑇▁? ◆◄⑈!”

“Ah good, as long as they are not trying to squeeze into you that should be fine?”

“◆ ▄▟ ◍◅⑆⇜? ↺◶ ◶⌒▁◵⌒⎌◈◹?”

“I’m fine out here, just tracking down where our passengers went, I think that the port authorities are making way more out of this then is warranted personally. But we shall see, don’t you worry!”

“◄◎▶”

Pylo found herself nodding along as she talked with Tunie, She quickly gave herself a little shake to try and clear her linguistic palette, then realized what she did and huffed.

Blech terran mannerisms were infections, she was going to be catching herself flopping all over after this contract was finished confusing everyone!

With a moment of centering she found the posture that worked best with the neighborhood population of ‘clerks’.

Gently nuzzling one of their piles softly and running a few soft associations through the lethargic tissues within.

Pylo had been refining her technique as she worked through the crowds, finding ways to soften the exchange to get the most out of her worn out conversation partners.

“Qusho qush qush qou?”

One of the blobs of meat and processing furl wrapped in sparse fatty streaks of near exhausted metabolic deposits stirred under the prompting. The little ceillia flexing once or twice and the eye turning blearily towards the contact but not quite managing to focus.

“Oh don’t go fast, gentle soft, fuzzy soft, You don’t have to think hard”

The eye relaxed and the rest of the body softly settled and relaxed back into an exhausted relaxation of before, but still just barely tickled with attention for her.

“There you go. Qusho qush qush quo. I have some friends who have gone missing.”

The little blob shifted a bit, then pulled itself closer to one of its fellows a bit. Eye foggily staring out unseeing in the mild bliss of its experience.

“Did you see the three of them? They sang and laughed like Kshiha kash kush ku? Soft softly, in a round?”

As with many before the eye barely tried to turn and Pylo gently lifted the intent from it before softly smothering the impulse.

“That’s good rest now, Susho shush shoo”

She booped the little thing with her snoot to give the last little comforting nudge and put it back into that lazy almost torpored out state. Then pulled back and oriented herself to the direction given, looking around for a good candidate pile of witnesses and stretched and pulled herself over to them. While the puttering worrier and the serene assemblage of blocks drifted along with her.

She nuzzled into another pile and began thrumming over associations once more.

“Qusho qush qush qou?”