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 Charles. “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 stem structures with enormous entrances. Men and women with brief cases 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 speeded 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.”
Chapter 7 — 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.”