Through Glass Darkly: Episode Two by Peter Knyte Page A

cloth, even a Police officer’s hat.
    ‘Why do you ask?’ Fraser said, looking more closely at the pile of rubbish.
    ‘This almost looks like something the creature accumulated over several days, a kind of nest.’ I replied. ‘But we’ve never seen this kind of behaviour before from a Lamphrey.
    ‘Could we identify which officer lost that hat if we took it back?’ I asked.
    ‘Maybe,’ commented Fraser. ‘Some forces keep track of that kind of thing so they can charge officers for the lost item if they make a habit of it.’
    Time was getting on, and we still needed to get back to the ship and make our way over to the lower-east side of Manhattan Island in order to help out with the search, so I quickly snagged the hat with a bit of stick and we started to scout around looking for an exit.
    We found one just a few yards up from the junction in one of the storm drains. It was a simple ladder this time, leading up to a manhole cover which only took a moment to remove, and which brought us up on the other side of the railyard. I didn’t recognise the street, but with the ship hanging in the sky not far away it was easy to figure out which direction we needed to head in.
    We’d only walked about fifty yards toward the ship, when we stumbled across a roped off area near to a police notice indicating that the area was dangerous and members of the public should leave it immediately.
    That in combination with the dark stains on the ground behind the rope, suggested this was the site where the Police radio car had been attacked and the driver killed. It was a grisly thought that I might be carrying that very drivers hat in my hand, but for the life of me I couldn’t imagine why the creature would’ve taken it.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER 26 - TRACES
     
    We found our way back to the ship fairly quickly, although it did involve having to scale a fence to get back into the railyard, and in no time we were back aboard and heading over to Manhattan Island.
    With the ship largely back in operational order and no more signs of the generators unexpectedly surging, it was smooth sailing above the morning traffic.
    There was no way of not causing a bit of a sensation as we flew across the lower-east side, but in order to keep the disruption to a minimum Platt had asked us to use Columbus Park as our drop off point. A crowd of people quickly gathered to wave and shout their hello’s as descended, but the Police Captain had a car waiting to pick us up and take us to our designated entry points along the Bowry, so we were whisked away fairly quickly. Only Fraser and myself were disembarking, while Jenkins, Hughes and the Captain remained aboard to fly the ship.
    As we got closer to going down into the sewers I couldn’t help but wonder whether it was entirely wise for so many people to be heading down there with the creature as I would be the only person amongst the search teams with the ability to see it, if it had somehow healed enough to be able turn invisible again. I didn’t think it was likely even a Lamphrey could’ve healed so much damage so quickly, so I was probably just being over concerned, as even in the worst case scenario, in the confines of the sewers the lensing scopes which the search teams had used before should be much more effective than they had been in the open, but even so I still couldn’t stop thinking about it.
    It had occurred to me earlier on when we’d been heading over to the railyard, and I’d persuaded Fraser to try and get the hang of using a full lensing rig. It wasn’t a very good option but he had a natural talent with lenses so I thought it was worth a try.
    Having seen me use my own rig he wasn’t confident he could remember the various intricacies of its operation in such a short time, but he was willing to consider it.
     
    ‘Could you not just set up for me and I’ll just switch it on if I need it?’ He asked, optimistically.
    ‘They just don’t work that