Rites of Passage (3 page)

Tommy thanked his stars: a minute longer in the biting cold and he would have frozen to death. One hour ago he had rapped on the door of number Twenty-Five, only to be told by a disdainful housekeeper that Mr Burns was not at home.

Now he ran across the cobbles, climbed the steps and knocked again. A minute later the haughty matron favoured him with another pained grimace.

“Please, ma’am, it’s urgent I see Mr Burns quick sharp.”

“Your business?”

Tommy wracked his brains to come up with a suitable reply. At last he said, “A manikin wishes to talk to Mr Burns, ma’am.”

“Well, I’ve had stranger callers than the likes of you,” the matron sniffed. “Come in while I consult Mr Burns.”

Tommy stepped into a large vestibule adorned with paintings and stood as instructed on a doormat as the housekeeper bustled off. Only now, in the warmth, did he realise how cold he’d been outside; he hugged himself and began to shiver.

Presently the housekeeper returned. “You’re in luck, young sir. Mr Burns will see you. But first–” she went on, pointing to the blobs of mud that disguised his feet, “take those disgusting things off or you’ll ruin the carpets!”

Tommy knelt and unfastened the rags that bound his feet, then stood and beamed at the matron. She seemed unimpressed. “Lordy, young sir, your feet are almost as black.” She looked about and found a pair of Persian slippers. “These were for the rag and bone man, but they’ll do for now.”

Tommy slipped his feet into the silken slippers, thinking he’d never felt anything as luxurious in all his life, and followed the housekeeper along the hall and up three flights of stairs to the very top of the house.

She opened a door and announced, “The guttersnipe, sir,” waving Tommy into the room and closing the door as she left.

Tommy stopped dead and stared about him in wonder. The room was large, but seemed smaller on account of all the ornaments and knick-knacks and paraphernalia that cluttered it: Tommy could not name much of what he saw, but he did recognise a set of African spears and a shield, a suit of armour, a stuffed animal of some kind, a hundred pictures from all around the world.

Only then did he become aware of the figure seated in an armchair before the window. As he stared, the figure rose to its full height and regarded him.

Bartholomew Burns’ face was thin and sallow, his hair jet black, his eyes as dark as Indian ink, and piercing. He emanated an air of other-worldliness, and Tommy found himself stammering.

“Mer-Mr Burns, I’m Ter-Tommy, Ter-Tommy Newton.” He glanced down at his feet, then, and blushed when he beheld his skinny shanks disappearing into the ridiculous pink slippers.

Despite his severe aspect, Mr Burns smiled and gestured towards the roaring fire. “Take a seat, Tommy, and recount your business. You told Mrs Hopkins some story about a manikin?”

“That I did, sir. See, I were mudlarkin’, or about to, when I come upon this... this thing in the mud. It were hard, like, where the mud shouldn’t have been hard, and the next I knew I were fallin’.”

Burns held up a hand, took Tommy’s elbow and eased him into an armchair. He sat in the chair opposite and smiled reassuringly. “Now, calmly, from the beginning – but first, a mug of Earl Grey, perhaps?”

Soon Tommy was warming his hands on a cup of the finest tea he’d ever tasted. Between sips he recounted his story.

“So I fell, sir, only I didn’t hit anything. I were floating in mid-air. I were inside some kind of ship under the mud, and this creature, this manikin, he were staring at me with eyes like saucers, no word of a lie!”

Burns’s jet eyes seemed to ignite as he leaned forward and said, “This manikin, describe him to me, if you will.”

Tommy nodded. “He were small and skinny, smaller than me, and bone white, but with a big bonce. And when he spoke I didn’t hear the words normally – they kind of sounded in my head.”

“And the carapace of his ship was golden, did you say?”

Tommy deciphered Burns’s meaning and nodded. “That’s right, sir.”

Burns then said something under his breath that Tommy did not understand, “By Heavens, it is a Sentinel if I’m not mistaken.” He said to Tommy, “And what did this manikin say to you?”

“He told me not to be afraid. He wouldn’t harm me, he said. Then he said I had to find you, Bartholomew Burns, and he gave me your address and said I had to come and fetch you and take you back to the craft.” Tommy shrugged. “And here I am.”

“And here you certainly are, m’boy – the answer to my problems and no mistake!”

Tommy blinked. “Your problems?”

“A long story – but one I’ll apprise you of in due course.”

Tommy gulped his tea, afraid that Burns would dismiss him before he’d drained the cup. “And the manikin? He a friend of yours?”

Burns laughed. “Not a friend, as such, but shall I say a colleague? Very well, there’s no time to lose, Tommy. Can you take me to the river and point out the exact whereabouts of the ship, d’you think?”

Tommy puffed his chest. “Never forget the position of a treasure,” he said. “It’ll be high tide now, but in another hour we’ll be able to find it and no mistake.”

“Then let’s take a cab to the riverbank and prepare for an audience with the Sentinel,” Burns said with a cryptic wink to a bemused Tommy.

~

O
ne hour later Burns knelt beside the capstan and watched as the moon-silvered waters of the Thames slowly receded to reveal a shining expanse of jet black mud. And to think, he mused, that Tommy and hundreds like him scraped a meagre living from wading through this filth in search of scant pickings.

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.”

“Then we must do what we must inside two hours,” Burns said.

Tommy spoke up, “What’s he sayin’, Mr Burns? He’s talkin’ about me, I’ll wager.”

“Tommy, you have nothing to fear. You will sleep for a period, and when you awaken all will be well.”

The Sentinel reached out, and with claw-like hand depressed a set of keys on a console to his right.

Burns felt a certain frisson, as if a charge of electricity filled the ship, and instantly the Sentinel’s head flopped back on its rest, and its great eyes fluttered shut.

Beside him, Tommy sat suddenly upright and beamed at Burns.

“Oh, to inhabit a form possessed of youth and vitality!” cried the Sentinel through Tommy’s lips; and the incongruity of the fine words expressed in Tommy’s Yorkshire brogue made Burns smile.

The Sentinel-in-Tommy leapt to his feet and pulled two short-barrelled devices from a rack; he brandished the first at Burns. “A disequaliser. This works very much like a crystal in reverse; one shot at the subject and it will eject the interloper’s mind from its host and capture it in this chamber.” He tapped a bulbous glass container beneath the gun barrel. “Then I can return with Turqan in custody and hand him over to the Galactic Federation for trial.” He passed Burns the second weapon. “This is a simple stunner. One pulse will render the victim comatose for up to an hour. You might find it of use.”