A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle [53]
Calvin: “Yes. You’re right, sir.”
She wanted to call out to them. “I’m alive! I’m very much alive! Only I’ve been turned to stone.”
But she could not call out anymore than she could move.
Calvin’s voice again. “Anyhow you got her away from IT. You got us both away and we couldn’t have gone on holding out. IT’s so much more powerful and strong than—How did we stay out, sir? How did we manage as long as we did?”
Her father: “Because IT’s completely unused to being refused. That’s the only reason I could keep from being absorbed, too. No mind has tried to hold out against IT for so many thousands of centuries that certain centers have become soft and atrophied through lack of use. If you hadn’t come to me when you did I’m not sure how much longer I would have lasted. I was on the point of giving in.”
Calvin: “Oh, no, sir—”
Her father: “Yes. Nothing seemed important anymore but rest, and of course IT offered me complete rest. I had almost come to the conclusion that I was wrong to fight, that IT was right after all, and everything I believed in most passionately was nothing but a madman’s dream. But then you and Meg came in to me, broke through my prison, and hope and faith returned.”
Calvin: “Sir, why were you on Camazotz at all? Was there a particular reason for going there?”
Her father, with a frigid laugh: “Going to Camazotz was a complete accident. I never intended even to leave our own solar system. I was heading for Mars. Tessering is even more complicated than we had expected.”
Calvin: “Sir, how was IT able to get Charles Wallace before it got Meg and me?”
Her father: “From what you’ve told me it’s because Charles Wallace thought he could deliberately go into IT and return. He trusted too much to his own strength—listen!—I think the heartbeat is getting stronger!”
His words no longer sounded to her quite as frozen. Was it his words that were ice, or her ears? Why did she hear only her father and Calvin? Why didn’t Charles Wallace speak?
Silence. A long silence. Then Calvin’s voice again: “Can’t we do anything? Can’t we look for help? Do we just have to go on waiting?”
Her father: “We can’t leave her. And we must stay together. We must not be afraid to take time.”
Calvin: “You mean we were? We rushed into things on Camazotz too fast, and Charles Wallace rushed in too fast, and that’s why he got caught?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure. I don’t know enough yet. Time is different on Camazotz, anyhow. Our time, inadequate though it is, at least is straightforward. It may not be even fully one-dimensional, because it can’t move back and forth on its line, only ahead; but at least it’s consistent in its direction. Time on Camazotz seems to be inverted, turned in on itself. So I have no idea whether I was imprisoned in that column for centuries or only for minutes.” Silence for a moment. Then her father’s voice again. “I think I feel a pulse in her wrist now.”
Meg could not feel his fingers against her wrist. She could not feel her wrist at all. Her body was still stone, but her mind was beginning to be capable of movement. She tried desperately to make some kind of a sound, a signal to them, but nothing happened.
Their voices started again. Calvin: “About your project, sir. Were you on it alone?”
Her father: “Oh, no. There were half a dozen of us working on it and I daresay a number of others we don’t know about. Certainly we weren’t the only nation to investigate along that line. It’s not really a new idea. But we did try very hard not to let it be known abroad that we were trying to make it practicable.”
“Did you come to Camazotz alone? Or were there others with you?”
“I came alone. You see, Calvin, there was no way to try it out ahead with rats or monkeys or dogs. And we had no idea whether it would really work or whether it would be complete bodily disintegration. Playing with time and space is a dangerous game.”
“But why you, sir?”
“I wasn’t the first. We drew straws, and I was second.”
“What happened to the first man?”
“We don’t—look! Did her eyelids move?” Silence. Then: