A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle [35]
“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