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 towards 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 round in any one of hundreds of towns at 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 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 newspaper 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 Centre 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 channelled.’
‘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 Centre 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 round 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 round 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 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 highest skyscraper, 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.’