it’s relevant,’ began the leader of team two, another Sergeant by the name of Stoker. ‘We were questioning some of the rough sleepers a few blocks over from where this thing struck last night, and they mentioned some young woman in a fancy uniform that had been hanging around.
‘One of the tramps thought she must work at a big hotel somewhere, because she was dressed like a bellhop or lift operator or something.
‘He was probably drunk, but he swears he woke up with her leaning over him like she was going to rob him or something, that’s when one of our patrol cars came round the corner and she ‘melts away’. His words not mine.’
‘Could this be someone else from your ship?’ Asked Jenkins, looking a bit confused.
‘I don’t see how it could be.’ I had to answer, a bit nonplussed. ‘If it were someone from the Khan why wouldn’t they have come forward and made themselves known . . . unless.’
‘Unless what Mr Hall.’ Jenkins urged. ‘If you’ve thought of something, we need to know what it is so we can at least rule it out.’
‘Could it be a saboteur from the ship?’ I asked as much as suggested. ‘We’d imagined they’d all been killed trying to defend the ship when it was attacked in the Expanse. But what if one of them was still closeted away when the Captain discharged the Arc capacitors. They had an antidote to the poison they used on the rest of us, so would’ve been fully mobile. But could they have descended in one of the cradles without being seen by the people on the ground, or got off the ship in some other way?’
My mind was racing to figure out whether it could be possible, but there were just too many unknowns.
‘And what about the melting away?’ Stoker reminded us all. ‘How do you explain that?’
‘Perhaps for now we should just put this report to one side,’ suggested Captain Platt, bringing us back to the topic at hand. ‘Even if this woman is one of your saboteurs, she’ll just be trying to hide out until the heat dies down. She was probably just after the homeless guys overcoat to disguise herself with, but she’s not the priority right now.’
He was right of course, for the moment whoever this young woman was it wasn’t relevant to our search. We had to focus on getting the creature first, we could worry about catching a traitor later.
The dog handlers had arrived while we’d been talking, and after the usual introductions we outlined the situation to them.
They were aware of the manhunt going on already from the press and the details that had been mentioned over the phone when arranging for them to bring in their dogs to help out, but they didn’t know the city, so we had to spend a while going over the maps and talking about how we could best utilise their time.
They’d brought a bloodhound and a coonhound with them, both of which would work best alone, and had been trained to follow a trail no matter where it lead. If the trail lead up to a rooftop we just had to get the dogs up there and they’d keep on tracking. And if they lost the scent they’d immediately start casting around until they found it again, all we had to do was keep up.
With so many people there I was expecting the meeting to drag on while everyone had their say or asked questions, but as soon as Jenkins was sure we all knew what was going on and who was going to be where we were ready for the off.
Platt had somehow managed to get nearly a dozen of the city’s radio patrol cars temporarily allocated to the hunt, and now he outlined how he intended to use them to throw a net around the creature in order to ensure there was no repeat of it escaping again. Both of the dog handlers would be supported by one search team, and that team would relay where the dog was leading them to the nearest radio car, which would in turn relay to Captain Platt who would then coordinate the other search teams in the area in order to try and head the creature off if it tried to make a run for
‘One of the tramps thought she must work at a big hotel somewhere, because she was dressed like a bellhop or lift operator or something.
‘He was probably drunk, but he swears he woke up with her leaning over him like she was going to rob him or something, that’s when one of our patrol cars came round the corner and she ‘melts away’. His words not mine.’
‘Could this be someone else from your ship?’ Asked Jenkins, looking a bit confused.
‘I don’t see how it could be.’ I had to answer, a bit nonplussed. ‘If it were someone from the Khan why wouldn’t they have come forward and made themselves known . . . unless.’
‘Unless what Mr Hall.’ Jenkins urged. ‘If you’ve thought of something, we need to know what it is so we can at least rule it out.’
‘Could it be a saboteur from the ship?’ I asked as much as suggested. ‘We’d imagined they’d all been killed trying to defend the ship when it was attacked in the Expanse. But what if one of them was still closeted away when the Captain discharged the Arc capacitors. They had an antidote to the poison they used on the rest of us, so would’ve been fully mobile. But could they have descended in one of the cradles without being seen by the people on the ground, or got off the ship in some other way?’
My mind was racing to figure out whether it could be possible, but there were just too many unknowns.
‘And what about the melting away?’ Stoker reminded us all. ‘How do you explain that?’
‘Perhaps for now we should just put this report to one side,’ suggested Captain Platt, bringing us back to the topic at hand. ‘Even if this woman is one of your saboteurs, she’ll just be trying to hide out until the heat dies down. She was probably just after the homeless guys overcoat to disguise herself with, but she’s not the priority right now.’
He was right of course, for the moment whoever this young woman was it wasn’t relevant to our search. We had to focus on getting the creature first, we could worry about catching a traitor later.
The dog handlers had arrived while we’d been talking, and after the usual introductions we outlined the situation to them.
They were aware of the manhunt going on already from the press and the details that had been mentioned over the phone when arranging for them to bring in their dogs to help out, but they didn’t know the city, so we had to spend a while going over the maps and talking about how we could best utilise their time.
They’d brought a bloodhound and a coonhound with them, both of which would work best alone, and had been trained to follow a trail no matter where it lead. If the trail lead up to a rooftop we just had to get the dogs up there and they’d keep on tracking. And if they lost the scent they’d immediately start casting around until they found it again, all we had to do was keep up.
With so many people there I was expecting the meeting to drag on while everyone had their say or asked questions, but as soon as Jenkins was sure we all knew what was going on and who was going to be where we were ready for the off.
Platt had somehow managed to get nearly a dozen of the city’s radio patrol cars temporarily allocated to the hunt, and now he outlined how he intended to use them to throw a net around the creature in order to ensure there was no repeat of it escaping again. Both of the dog handlers would be supported by one search team, and that team would relay where the dog was leading them to the nearest radio car, which would in turn relay to Captain Platt who would then coordinate the other search teams in the area in order to try and head the creature off if it tried to make a run for
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