Eric Brown: Rites of Passage

The ragamuffin said, “It were there, just by the prow of the coaler. A minute and we’ll be able to reach it.” He glanced at Burns’s footwear. “Make a right mess of your fancy brogues, though, Mr Burns.”

“The least of my concerns right now,” Burns murmured to himself.

The boy looked at him. “What were that odd creature, Mr Burns, and what does it want with you?”

“That, m’boy, we shall soon learn.”

His mind was racing with the events of the past few hours, the arrival of the Kyrixian, and now this — the appearance of a Sentinel, if he were not mistaken. It was beginning to make a kind of sense; but the next few minutes would prove him right, or wrong, on that score.

“Right-oh,” Tommy said. “Follow me, Mr Burns.”

They climbed down the ladder and set off across the mud, Burns sinking almost to his knees with every step.

“Easy does it,” Tommy said, “or the mud’ll have your shoes.”

Burns adapted his gait, taking a lesson from Tommy’s slow, high steps. They approached the canted coaler and ducked beneath its prow, and Tommy pointed. “Right there, Mr Burns. Just where that cockleshell sits.”

Burns stepped forward, and instantly the surface beneath his feet solidified reassuringly. He scraped his right foot, and made out a dull copper gleam before the mud oozed back.

Tommy joined him. “I were standing here when all of a sudden–”

Burns’s stomach lurched…

He fell, and beside him Tommy yelped as they found themselves beneath the surface of the mud, suspended in mid-air within the curved confines of what looked very much like a Sentinel ship.

His suspicions were confirmed when he beheld the wizened, etiolated form of a Sentinel, regarding him from its orthopaedic brace, Earth’s gravity being too injurious for the creature’s delicate frame.

The manikin gestured with a thin hand, and the force that levitated Burns and the boy lessened and lowered the pair into padded seats opposite the Sentinel.

The creature gestured feebly. “A forced landing, Mr Burns,” the alien said in lingua galactica. “Forgive me. I would have been in touch much sooner, but for the gravity of this confounded planet. My ship suffered various mechanical failures upon entry. One of them being my communicator.”

Burns smiled. “But you managed to contact me nevertheless.”

The manikin’s great head turned towards the staring Tommy. “I exerted mental pressure. The boy, though not a prime specimen, does have virtues to recommend him.”

Burns replied, diplomatically, “The iniquitous social structure of my world quite arbitrarily deems that some of its members are disallowed the privileges enjoyed by others. But I take it that you did not summon me to discuss Earth’s political plight?”

The Sentinel grimaced hideously in what Burns took to be an attempt at a smile. “Quite correct, Burns. More pressing matters demand our attention.”

Beside him, Tommy said, “What’s the lingo you’re speakin’? It don’t sound like no Spanish I’ve ever heard!” He leaned forward. “And just what is that… that thing , Mr Burns!”

Burns gripped the boy’s arm and said, “Fear not, Tommy. We’re in friendly company.”

He returned his attention to the wan Sentinel and said, “A Kyrixian ship with a single occupant materialised beneath London one day ago. The creature passed away, but before doing so warned of a Qui ship bent on invasion. Its motives now become clear: it wished to alert the authorities to your very own arrival, so that they might attack and destroy your craft.”

The Sentinel shifted uncomfortably in its brace, a vein like an earthworm pulsing upon its osseous skull. “The very reason I am here, Burns. The Kyrixian is an alien known as Turqan; his planet is dying, and he wishes to relocate his people to a more clement world. Turqan is well known to the Galactic Council, and the Kyrixians an implacable warlike race–”

Burns interjected, “But I assure you that Turqan was quite alone, unless his compatriots came aboard other ships.”

The Sentinel paused; a wispy, cartilaginous tongue moistened thin lips, and he proceeded, “You are behind the times, Burns. Turqan stores his people in the matrices of what, for the want of a better name, I call memory crystals. It is my assumption that soon he will effect their dissemination from the crystals — into the minds of innocent Earthlings. “

“But if I might say so,” Burns interrupted, “you forget one thing. The creature — Turqan — is dead.”

The Sentinel leaned forward, its massive eyes staring. “Such he would like you to assume, Burns. But I assure you, though its somaform might very well be lifeless, it is my guess that Turqan effected the transfer of his mind to a victim Earthling, one, perhaps, in a position of power whose influence he might use to effect the dissemination of his fellow Kyrixians.”

Burns smote the padding of his seat. He recalled the fact that, according to Travers, none other than Prince Albert himself had been present at the death of the alien.

He recounted these facts to the Sentinel. “I saw the Prince just hours ago,” Burns said. “He seemed decidedly ill.”

The Sentinel said, “It would have taken a little time for Turqan’s mind to achieve total integration with a host body; you no doubt witnessed the psychosomatic symptoms of the cerebral invasion.”

“But if the alien now inhabits the Prince’s very self, and he has in his possession the means to broadcast his fellows into the minds of the populace…” Burns shook his head, then asked, “How many Kyrixians are stored within these crystals, Sentinel?”

“They number, at a conservative estimate, around twenty thousand.”

A terrible thought occurred to Burns. “Sentinel, the Prince is organising an event in London at which Turqan will have ample opportunity to disseminate a number of his fellows into the minds of the throngs who attend.”

“When does this event commence?”

“The Great Exhibition, as it is known, will not open until May. But tomorrow none other than the Prince himself will conduct a tour of politicians and heads of industry around the various exhibits.”

“A perfect opportunity for Turqan to effect the transfer to supremely influential hosts!” The Sentinel leaned forward, veins pulsing feverishly in its egg-shell skull. “We have no time to lose. Together we must apprehend the invader.”

Burns hazarded, “I think, sir, that your singular presence might be commented upon adversely by the populace of London.”

“I am a Sentinel, Burns. My kind is gifted with many powers–”

“I am aware…” Burns began.

“One of which is the temporary ability to inhabit the mind of a certain subject.”

Burns opened his mouth to object. Now he understood what the Sentinel had meant by their having to apprehend the alien together .

He had experienced much in his five years as a Guardian, but never had he given up residence of his body. “But what autonomy will I possess with you riding in my skull?” he demurred.

“Burns, this will likely take the two of us, physically, to bring about Turqan’s arrest. I plan to inhabit the person of the boy, of course.”

Burns glanced at Tommy, who was looking from the Sentinel to Burns as if intuitively aware of the turn of the conversation.

“I will reside in his sensorium, in control of his body, and he will know nothing of this. It will be as if he were asleep.”

“And he won’t be harmed?”

“There is a certain danger in the procedure,” the Sentinel allowed. “I can sustain the link for perhaps two hours, perhaps a little longer. After that, if I did not return, my body here would perish — as did the Kyrixian you observed earlier. And I would remain in Tommy’s corpus, his identity subsumed by my own.”