Charles Wallace ran after it and picked it up, holding it out for Meg and Calvin to see. It seemed like a perfectly ordinary, brown rubber ball.
“Let’s take it in to him and see what happens,” Charles Wallace suggested.
Meg pulled at him. “Mrs Whatsit said for us to go on into the town.”
“Well, we are in the town, aren’t we? The outskirts anyhow. I want to know more about this. I have a hunch it may help us later. You go on if you don’t want to come with me.”
“No,” Calvin said firmly. “We’re going to stay together. Mrs Whatsit said we weren’t to let them separate us. But I’m with you on this. Let’s knock and see what happens.”
They went up the path to the house, Meg reluctant, eager to get on into the town. “Let’s hurry,” she begged, “please! Don’t you want to find Father?”
“Yes,” Charles Wallace said, “but not blindly. How can we help him if we don’t know what we’re up against? And it’s obvious we’ve been brought here to help him, not just to find him.” He walked briskly up the steps and knocked at the door. They waited. Nothing happened. Then Charles Wallace saw a bell, and this he rang. They could hear the bell buzzing in the house, and the sound of it echoed down the street. After a moment the mother figure opened the door. All up and down the street other doors opened, but only a crack, and eyes peered toward the three children and the woman looking fearfully out the door at them.
“What do you want?” she asked. “It isn’t paper time yet; we’ve had milk time; we’ve had this month’s Puller Prush Person; and I’ve given my Decency Donations regularly. All my papers are in order.”
“I think your little boy dropped his ball,” Charles Wallace said, holding it out.
The woman pushed the ball away. “Oh, no! The children in our section never drop balls! They’re all perfectly trained. We haven’t had an Aberration for three years.”
All up and down the block, heads nodded in agreement.
Charles Wallace moved closer to the woman and looked past her into the house. Behind her in the shadows he could see the little boy, who must have been about his own age.
“You can’t come in,” the woman said. “You haven’t shown me any papers. I don’t have to let you in if you haven’t any papers.”
Charles Wallace held the ball out beyond the woman so that the little boy could see it. Quick as a flash the boy leaped forward and grabbed the ball from Charles Wallace’s hand, then darted back into the shadows. The woman went very white, opened her mouth as though to say something, then slammed the door in their faces instead. All up and down the street doors slammed.
“What are they afraid of?” Charles Wallace asked. “What’s the matter with them?”
“Don’t you know?” Meg asked him. “Don’t you know what all this is about, Charles?”
“Not yet,” Charles Wallace said. “Not even an inkling. And I’m trying. But I didn’t get through anywhere. Not even a chink. Let’s go.” He stumped down the steps.
After several blocks the houses gave way to apartment buildings; at least Meg felt sure that that was what they must be. They were fairly tall, rectangular buildings, absolutely plain, each window, each entrance exactly like every other. Then, coming toward them down the street, was a boy about Calvin’s age riding a machine that was something like a combination of a bicycle and a motorcycle. It had the slimness and lightness of a bicycle, and yet as the foot pedals turned they seemed to generate an unseen source of power, so that the boy could pedal very slowly and yet move along the street quite swiftly. As he reached each entrance he thrust one hand into a bag he wore slung over his shoulder, pulled out a roll of papers, and tossed it into the entrance. It might have been Dennys or Sandy or any one of hundreds of boys with a newspaper route in any one of hundreds of towns back home, and yet, as with the children playing ball and jumping rope, there was something wrong about it. The rhythm of the gesture never varied. The paper flew in identically the same arc at each doorway, landed in identically the same spot. It was impossible for anybody to throw with such consistent perfection.
Calvin whistled. “I wonder if they play baseball here?”
As the boy saw them he slowed down on his machine and stopped, his hand arrested as it was about to plunge into the paper bag. “What are you kids doing out on the street?” he demanded. “Only route boys are allowed out now, you know that.”
“No, we don’t know it,” Charles Wallace said. “We’re strangers here. How about telling us something about this place?”
“You mean you’ve had your entrance papers processed and everything?” the boy asked. “You must have if you’re here,” he answered himself. “And what are you doing here if you don’t know about us?”
“You tell me,” Charles Wallace said.
“Are you examiners?” the boy asked a little anxiously. “Everybody knows our city has the best Central Intelligence Center on the planet. Our production levels are the highest. Our factories never close; our machines never stop rolling. Added to this we have five poets, one musician, three artists, and six sculptors, all perfectly channeled.”
“What are you quoting from?” Charles Wallace asked.
“The Manual, of course,” the boy said. “We are the most oriented city on the planet. There has been no trouble of any kind for centuries. All Camazotz knows our record. That is why we are the capital city of Camazotz. That is why CENTRAL Central Intelligence is located here. That is why IT makes ITs home here.” There was something about the way he said “IT” that made a shiver run up and down Meg’s spine.
But Charles Wallace asked briskly, “Where is this Central Intelligence Center of yours?”
“CENTRAL Central,” the boy corrected. “Just keep going and you can’t miss it. You are strangers, aren’t you! What are you doing here?”
“Are you supposed to ask questions?” Charles Wallace demanded severely.
The boy went white, just as the woman had. “I humbly beg your pardon. I must continue my route now or I will have to talk my timing into the explainer.” And he shot off down the street on his machine.
Charles Wallace stared after him. “What is it?” he asked Meg and Calvin. “There was something funny about the way he talked, as though—well, as though he weren’t really doing the talking. Know what I mean?”
Calvin nodded, thoughtfully. “Funny is right. Funny peculiar. Not only the way he talked, either. The whole thing smells.”
“Come on.” Meg pulled at them. How many times was it she had urged them on? “Let’s go find Father. He’ll be able to explain it all to us.”
They walked on. After several more blocks they began to see other people, grown-up people, not children, walking up and down and across the streets. These people ignored the children entirely, seeming to be completely intent on their own business. Some of them went into the apartment buildings. Most of them were heading in the same direction as the children. As these people came to the main street from the side streets they would swing around the corners with an odd, automatic stride, as though they were so deep in their own problems and the route was so familiar that they didn’t have to pay any attention to where they were going.
After a while the apartment buildings gave way to what must have been office buildings, great stern structures with enormous entrances. Men and women with briefcases poured in and out.
Charles Wallace went up to one of the women, saying politely, “Excuse me, but could you please tell me—” But she hardly glanced at him as she continued on her way.
“Look.” Meg pointed. Ahead of them, across a square, was the largest building they had ever seen, higher than the Empire State Building, and almost as long as it was high.
“This must be it,” Charles Wallace said, “their CENTRAL Central Intelligence or whatever it is. Let’s go on.”
“But if Father’s in some kind of trouble with this planet,” Meg objected, “isn’t that exactly where we shouldn’t go?”
“Well, how do you
propose finding him?” Charles Wallace demanded.
“I certainly wouldn’t ask there!”
“I didn’t say anything about asking. But we aren’t going to have the faintest idea where or how to begin to look for him until we find out something more about this place, and I have a hunch that that’s the place to start. If you have a better idea, Meg, why of course just say so.”
“Oh, get down off your high horse,” Meg said crossly. “Let’s go to your old CENTRAL Central Intelligence and get it over with.”
“I think we ought to have passports or something,” Calvin suggested. “This is much more than leaving America to go to Europe. And that boy and the woman both seemed to care so much about having things in proper order. We certainly haven’t got any papers in proper order.”
“If we needed passports or papers Mrs Whatsit would have told us so,” Charles Wallace said.
Calvin put his hands on his hips and looked down at Charles Wallace. “Now look here, old sport. I love those three old girls just as much as you do, but I’m not sure they know everything.”
“They know a lot more than we do.”
“Granted. But you know Mrs Whatsit talked about having been a star. I wouldn’t think that being a star would give her much practice in knowing about people. When she tried to be a person she came pretty close to goofing it up. There was never anybody on land or sea like Mrs Whatsit the way she got herself up.”
“She was just having fun,” Charles said. “If she’d wanted to look like you or Meg I’m sure she could have.”
Calvin shook his head. “I’m not so sure. And these people seem to be people, if you know what I mean. They aren’t like us, I grant you that, there’s something very off-beat about them. But they’re lots more like ordinary people than the ones on Uriel.”
“Do you suppose they’re robots?” Meg suggested.
Charles Wallace shook his head. “No. That boy who dropped the ball wasn’t any robot. And I don’t think the rest of them are, either. Let me listen for a minute.”
They stood very still, side by side, in the shadow of one of the big office buildings. Six large doors kept swinging open, shut, open, shut, as people went in and out, in and out, looking straight ahead, straight ahead, paying no attention to the children whatsoever, whatsoever. Charles wore his listening, probing look. “They’re not robots,” he said suddenly and definitely. “I’m not sure what they are, but they’re not robots. I can feel minds there. I can’t get at them at all, but I can feel them sort of pulsing. Let me try a minute more.”
The three of them stood there very quietly. The doors kept opening and shutting, opening and shutting, and the stiff people hurried in and out, in and out, walking jerkily like figures in an old silent movie. Then, abruptly, the stream of movement thinned. There were only a few people and these moved more rapidly, as if the film had been sped up. One white-faced man in a dark suit looked directly at the children, said, “Oh, dear, I shall be late,” and flickered into the building.
“He’s like the white rabbit,” Meg giggled nervously.
“I’m scared,” Charles said. “I can’t reach them at all. I’m completely shut out.”
“We have to find Father—” Meg started again.
“Meg—” Charles Wallace’s eyes were wide and frightened. “I’m not sure I’ll even know Father. It’s been so long, and I was only a baby—”
Meg’s reassurance came quickly. “You’ll know him! Of course you’ll know him! The way you’d know me even without looking because I’m always there for you, you can always reach in—”
“Yes.” Charles punched one small fist into an open palm with a gesture of great decision. “Let’s go to CENTRAL Central Intelligence.”
Calvin reached out and caught both Charles and Meg by the arm. “You remember when we met, you asked me why I was there? And I told you it was because I had a compulsion, a feeling I just had to come to that particular place at that particular moment?”
“Yes, sure.”
“I’ve got another feeling. Not the same kind, a different one, a feeling that if we go into that building we’re going into terrible danger.”
SEVEN
The Man
with Red Eyes
“We knew we were going to be in danger,” Charles Wallace said. “Mrs Whatsit told us that.”
“Yes, and she told us that it was going to be worse for you than for Meg and me, and that you must be careful. You stay right here with Meg, old sport, and let me go in and case the joint and then report to you.”
“No,” Charles Wallace said firmly. “She told us to stay together. She told us not to go off by ourselves.”
“She told you not to go off by yourself. I’m the oldest and I should go in first.”
“No.” Meg’s voice was flat. “Charles is right, Cal. We have to stay together. Suppose you didn’t come out and we had to go in after you? Unh-unh. Come on. But let’s hold hands if you don’t mind.”
Holding hands, they crossed the square. The huge CENTRAL Central Intelligence Building had only one door, but it was an enormous one, at least two stories high and wider than a room, made of a dull, bronzelike material.
“Do we just knock?” Meg giggled.
Calvin studied the door. “There isn’t any handle or knob or latch or anything. Maybe there’s another way to get in.”
“Let’s try knocking anyhow,” Charles said. He raised his hand, but before he touched the door it slid up from the top and to each side, splitting into three sections that had been completely invisible a moment before. The startled children looked into a great entrance hall of dull, greeny marble. Marble benches lined three of the walls. People were sitting there like statues. The green of the marble reflecting on their faces made them look bilious. They turned their heads as the door opened, saw the children, looked away again.
“Come on,” Charles said, and, still holding hands, they stepped in. As they crossed the threshold the door shut silently behind them. Meg looked at Calvin and Charles and they, like the waiting people, were a sickly green.
The children went up to the blank fourth wall. It seemed unsubstantial, as though one might almost be able to walk through it. Charles put out his hand. “It’s solid, and icy cold.”
Calvin touched it, too. “Ugh.”
Meg’s left hand was held by Charles, her right by Calvin, and she had no desire to let go either of them to touch the wall.
“Let’s ask somebody something.” Charles led them over to one of the benches. “Er, could you tell us what’s the procedure around here?” he asked one of the men. The men all wore nondescript business suits, and though their features were as different one from the other as the features of men on earth, there was also a sameness to them.
—Like the sameness of people riding in a subway, Meg thought.—Only on a subway every once in a while there’s somebody different and here there isn’t.
The man looked at the children warily. “The procedure for what?”
“How do we see whoever’s in authority?” Charles asked.
“You present your papers to the A machine. You ought to know that,” the man said severely.
“Where is the A machine?” Calvin asked.
The man pointed to the blank wall.
“But there isn’t a door or anything,” Calvin said. “How do we get in?”
“You put your S papers in the B slot,” the man said. “Why are you asking me these stupid questions? Do you think I don’t know the answers? You’d better not play any games around here or you’ll have to go through the Process machine again and you don’t want to do that.”
“We’re strangers here,” Calvin said. “That’s why we don’t know about things. Please tell us, sir, who you are and what you do.”
“I run a number-one spelling machine on the second-grade level.”
“But what are you doing here now?” Charles Wallace asked.
“I am here to report that one of my letters is jamming, and until i
t can be properly oiled by an F Grade oiler there is danger of jammed minds.”
“Strawberry jam or raspberry?” Charles Wallace murmured. Calvin looked down at Charles and shook his head warningly. Meg gave the little boy’s hand a slight, understanding pressure. Charles Wallace, she was quite sure, was not trying to be rude or funny; it was his way of whistling in the dark.
The man looked at Charles sharply. “I think I shall have to report you. I’m fond of children, due to the nature of my work and I don’t like to get them in trouble, but rather than run the risk myself of reprocessing I must report you.”
“Maybe that’s a good idea,” Charles said. “Who do you report us to?”
“To whom do I report you.”
“Well, to whom, then. I’m not on the second-grade level yet.”
—I wish he wouldn’t act so sure of himself, Meg thought, looking anxiously at Charles and holding his hand more and more tightly until he wriggled his fingers in protest. That’s what Mrs Whatsit said he had to watch, being proud.—Don’t, please don’t, she thought hard at Charles Wallace. She wondered if Calvin realized that a lot of the arrogance was bravado.
The man stood up, moving jerkily as though he had been sitting for a long time. “I hope he isn’t too hard on you,” he murmured as he led the children toward the empty fourth wall. “But I’ve been reprocessed once and that was more than enough. And I don’t want to get sent to IT. I’ve never been sent to IT and I can’t risk having that happen.”
There was IT again. What was this IT?
The man took from his pocket a folder filled with papers of every color. He shuffled through them carefully, finally withdrawing one. “I’ve had several reports to make lately. I shall have to ask for a requisition for more A-21 cards.” He took the card and put it against the wall. It slid through the marble, as though it were being sucked in, and disappeared. “You may be detained for a few days,” the man said, “but I’m sure they won’t be too hard on you because of your youth. Just relax and don’t fight and it will all be much easier for you.” He went back to his seat, leaving the children standing and staring at the blank wall.
A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet) Page 9