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It was a disappointment, but he'd find other ways to neutralize the threat. And now, as long as he was scanning the inventory, *was* there anything that he might be able to use in the battleroom? Cleaning supplies weren't very promising. Nor would the hardware stocks make much sense in the battleroom. What, throw a handful of screws?
The safety equipment, though ...
"What's a deadline?" asked Bean.
Dimak answered. "Very fine, strong cord that's used to secure maintenance and construction workers when they're working outside the station."
"How long?"
"With links, we can assemble several kilometers of secure deadline," said Dimak. "But each coil unspools to a hundred meters."
"I want to see it."
They took him into parts of the station that children never went to. The decor was far more utilitarian here. Screws and rivets were visible in the plates on the walls. The intake ducts were visible instead of being hidden inside the ceiling. There were no friendly lightstripes for a child to touch and get directions to his barracks. All the palm pads were too high for a child to comfortably use. And the staff they passed saw Bean and then looked at Dap and Dimak as if they were crazy.
The coil was amazingly small. Bean hefted it. Light, too. He unspooled a few decameters of it. It was almost invisible. "This will hold?"
"The weight of two adults," said Dimak.
"It's so fine. Will it cut?"
"Rounded so smoothly it can't cut anything. Wouldn't do us any good if it went slicing through things. Like spacesuits."
"Can I cut it into short lengths?"
"With a blowtorch," said Dimak.
"This is what I want."
"Just one?" asked Dap, rather sarcastically. "And a blowtorch," said Bean.
"Denied," said Dimak.