"Hold it--" Calvin whispered, and together he and Meg darted forward and grabbed Charles Wallace, pulling him back from the platform.
The man gave a wince and the thought of his voice was a little breathless, as though Charles Wallace's punch had succeeded in winding him. "May I ask why you did that?"
"Because you aren't you," Charles Wallace said. "I'm not sure what you are, but you"--he pointed to the man on the chair--"aren't what's talking to us. I'm sorry if I hurt you. I didn't think you were real. I thought perhaps you were a robot, because I don't feel anything coming directly from you. I'm not sure where it's coming from, but it's coming through you. It isn't you."
"Pretty smart, aren't you?" the thought asked, and Meg had an uncomfortable feeling that she detected a snarl.
"It's not that I'm smart," Charles Wallace said, and again Meg could feel the palm of his hand sweating inside hers.
"Try to find out who I am, then," the thought probed.
"I have been trying," Charles Wallace said, his voice high and troubled.
"Look into my eyes. Look deep within them and I will tell you."
Charles Wallace looked quickly at Meg and Calvin, then said, as though to himself, "I have to," and focused his clear blue eyes on the red ones of the man in the chair. Meg looked not at the man but at her brother. After a moment it seemed that his eyes were no longer focusing. The pupils grew smaller and smaller, as though he were looking into an intensely bright light, until they seemed to close entirely, until his eyes were nothing but an opaque blue. He slipped his hands out of Meg's and Calvin's and started walking slowly toward the man on the chair.
"No!" Meg screamed. "No!"
But Charles Wallace continued his slow walk forward, and she knew that he had not heard her.
"No!" she screamed again, and ran after him. With her inefficient flying tackle she landed on him. She was so much larger than he that he fell sprawling, hitting his head a sharp crack against the marble floor. She knelt by him, sobbing. After a moment of lying there as though he had been knocked out by the blow, he opened his eyes, shook his head, and sat up. Slowly the pupils of his eyes dilated until they were back to normal, and the blood came back to his white cheeks.
The man on the chair spoke directly into Meg's mind, and now there was a distinct menace to the words. "I am not pleased," he said to her. "I could very easily lose patience with you, and that, for your information, young lady, would not be good for your father. If you have the slightest desire to see your father again, you had better cooperate."
Meg reacted as she sometimes reacted to Mr. Jenkins at school. She scowled down at the ground in sullen fury. "It might help if you gave us something to eat," she complained. "We're all starved. If you're going to be horrible to us you might as well give us full stomachs first."
Again the thoughts coming at her broke into laughter. "Isn't she the funny girl, though! It's lucky for you that you amuse me, my dear, or I shouldn't be so easy on you. The boys I find not nearly so diverting. Ah, well. Now, tell me, young lady, if I feed you will you stop interfering with me?"
"No," Meg said.
"Starvation does work wonders, of course," the man told her. "I hate to use such primitive methods on you, but of course you realize that you force them on me."
"I wouldn't eat your old food, anyhow." Meg was still all churned up and angry as though she were in Mr. Jenkins' office. "I wouldn't trust it."
"Of course our food, being synthetic, is not superior to your messes of beans and bacon and so forth, but I assure you that it's far more nourishing, and though it has no taste of its own, a slight conditioning is all that is necessary to give you the illusion that you are eating a roast turkey dinner."
"If I ate now I'd throw up, anyhow," Meg said.
Still holding Meg's and Calvin's hands, Charles Wallace stepped forward. "Okay, what next?" he asked the man on the chair. "We've had enough of these preliminaries. Let's get on with it."
"That's exactly what we were doing," the man said, "until your sister interfered by practically giving you a brain concussion. Shall we try again?"
"No!" Meg cried. "No, Charles. Please. Let me do it. Or Calvin."
"But it is only the little boy whose neurological system is complex enough. If you tried to conduct the necessary neurons your brains would explode."
"And Charles's wouldn't?"
"I think not."
"But there's a possibility?"
"There's always a possibility."
"Then he mustn't do it."
"I think you will have to grant him the right to make his own decisions."
But Meg, with the dogged tenacity that had so often caused her trouble, continued. "You mean Calvin and I can't know who you really are?"
"Oh, no, I didn't say that. You can't know it in the same way, nor is it as important to me to have you know. Ah, here we are!" From somewhere in the shadows appeared four more men in dark smocks carrying a table. It was covered with a white cloth, like the tables used by Room Service in hotels, and held a metal hot box containing something that smelled delicious, something that smelled like a turkey dinner.
There's something phoney in the whole setup, Meg thought. There is definitely something rotten in the state of Camazotz.
Again the thoughts seemed to break into laughter. "Of course it doesn't really smell, but isn't it as good as though it really did?"
"I don't smell anything," Charles Wallace said.
"I know, young man, and think how much you're missing. This will all taste to you as though you were eating sand. But I suggest that you force it down. I would rather not have your decisions come from the weakness of an empty stomach."
The table was set up in front of them, and the dark-smocked men heaped their plates with turkey and dressing and mashed potatoes and gravy and little green peas with big yellow blobs of butter melting in them and cranberries and sweet potatoes topped with gooey browned marshmallows and olives and celery and rosebud radishes and--
Meg felt her stomach rumbling loudly. The saliva came to her mouth.
"Oh, Jeeminy--" Calvin mumbled.
Chairs appeared and the four men who had provided the feast slid back into the shadows.
Charles Wallace freed his hands from Meg and Calvin and plunked himself down on one of the chairs.
"Come on," he said. "If it's poisoned it's poisoned, but I don't think it is."
Calvin sat down. Meg continued to stand indecisively.
Calvin took a bite. He chewed. He swallowed. He looked at Meg. "If this isn't real, it's the best imitation you'll ever get."
Charles Wallace took a bite, made a face, and spit out his mouthful. "It's unfair!" he shouted at the man.
Laughter again. "Go on, little fellow. Eat."
Meg sighed and sat. "I don't think we should eat this stuff, but if you're going to, I'd better, too." She took a mouthful. "It tastes all right. Try some of mine, Charles." She held out a forkful of turkey.
Charles Wallace took it, made another face, but managed to swallow. "Still tastes like sand," he said. He looked at the man. "Why?"
"You know perfectly well why. You've shut your mind entirely to me. The other two can't. I can get in through the chinks. Not all the way in, but enough to give them a turkey dinner. You see, I'm really just a kind, jolly old gentleman."
"Ha," Charles Wallace said.
The man lifted his lips into a smile, and his smile was the most horrible thing Meg had ever seen. "Why don't you trust me, Charles? Why don't you trust me enough to come in and find out what I am? I am peace and utter rest. I am freedom from all responsibility. To come in to me is the last difficult decision you need ever make."
"If I come in can I get out again?" Charles Wallace asked.
"But of course, if you want to. But I don't think you will want to."
"If I come--not to stay, you understand--just to find out about you, will you tell us where Father is?"
"Yes. That is a promise. And I don't make promises li
ghtly."
"Can I speak to Meg and Calvin alone, without your listening in?"
"No."
Charles shrugged. "Listen," he said to Meg and Calvin. "I have to find out what he really is. You know that. I'm going to try to hold back. I'm going to try to keep part of myself out. You mustn't stop me this time, Meg."
"But you won't be able to, Charles! He's stronger than you are! You know that!"
"I have to try."
"But Mrs Whatsit warned you!"
"I have to try. For Father, Meg. Please. I want--I want to know my father--" For a moment his lips trembled. Then he was back in control. "But it isn't only Father, Meg. You know that, now. It's the Black Thing. We have to do what Mrs Which sent us to do."
"Calvin--" Meg begged.
But Calvin shook his head. "He's right, Meg. And we'll be with him, no matter what happens."
"But what's going to happen?" Meg cried.
Charles Wallace looked up at the man. "Okay," he said. "Let's go."
Now the red eyes and the light above seemed to bore into Charles, and again the pupils of the little boy's eyes contracted. When the final point of black was lost in blue he turned away from the red eyes, looked at Meg, and smiled sweetly, but the smile was not Charles Wallace's smile.
"Come on, Meg, eat this delicious food that has been prepared for us," he said.
Meg snatched Charles Wallace's plate and threw it on the floor, so that the dinner splashed about and the plate broke into fragments. "No!" She cried, her voice rising shrilly. "No! No! No!"
From the shadows came one of the dark-smocked men and put another plate in front of Charles Wallace, and he began to eat eagerly. "What's wrong, Meg?" Charles Wallace asked. "Why are you being so belligerent and uncooperative?" The voice was Charles Wallace's voice, and yet it was different, too, somehow flattened out, almost as a voice might have sounded on the two-dimensional planet.
Meg grabbed wildly at Calvin, shrieking, "That isn't Charles! Charles is gone!"
EIGHT
The
Transparent Column
Charles Wallace sat there tucking away turkey and dressing as though it were the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. He was dressed like Charles Wallace; he looked like Charles Wallace; he had the same sandy brown hair, the same face that had not yet lost its baby roundness. Only the eyes were different, for the black was still swallowed up in blue. But it was far more than this that made Meg feel that Charles Wallace was gone, that the little boy in his place was only a copy of Charles Wallace, only a doll.
She fought down a sob. "Where is he?" she demanded of the man with red eyes. "What have you done with him? Where is Charles Wallace?"
"But my dear child, you are hysterical," the man thought at her. "He is right there, before you, well and happy. Completely well and happy for the first time in his life. And he is finishing his dinner, which you also would be wise to do."
"You know it isn't Charles!" Meg shouted. "You've got him somehow."
"Hush, Meg. There's no use trying to talk to him," Calvin said, speaking in a low voice into her ear. "What we have to do is hold Charles Wallace tight. He's there, somewhere, underneath, and we mustn't let them take him away from us. Help me hold him, Meg. Don't lose control of yourself. Not now. You've got to help me hold Charles!" He took the little boy firmly by one arm.
Fighting down her hysteria, Meg took Charles's other arm and held it tightly.
"You're hurting me, Meg!" Charles said sharply. "Let me go!"
"No," Meg said grimly.
"We've been all wrong." Charles Wallace's voice, Meg thought, might have been a recording. There was a canned quality to it. "He isn't an enemy at all. He's our friend."
"Nuts," Calvin said rudely.
"You don't understand, Calvin," Charles Wallace said. "Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which have confused us. They're the ones who are really our enemies. We never should have trusted them for a minute." He spoke in his calmest, most reasonable voice, the voice which infuriated the twins. He seemed to be looking directly at Calvin as he spoke, and yet Meg was sure that the bland blue eyes could not see, and that someone, something else was looking at Calvin through Charles.
Now the cold, strange eyes turned to her. "Meg, let go. I will explain it all to you, but you must let go."
"No." Meg gritted her teeth. She did not release her grasp, and Charles Wallace began to pull away with a power that was not his own, and her own spindly strength was no match against it. "Calvin!" she gasped as Charles Wallace wrenched his arm from her and stood up.
Calvin the athlete, Calvin the boy who split firewood and brought it in for his mother, whose muscles were strong and controlled, let go Charles Wallace's wrist and tackled him as though he were a football. Meg, in her panic and rage, darted at the man on the chair, intending to hit him as Charles Wallace had done, but the black-smocked men were too quick for her, and one of them held her with her arms pinioned behind her back.
"Calvin, I advise you to let me go," came Charles Wallace's voice from under Calvin.
Calvin, his face screwed up with grim determination, did not relax his hold. The man with red eyes nodded and three of the men moved in on Calvin (at least it took three of them), pried him loose, and held him as Meg was being held.
"Mrs Whatsit!" Meg called despairingly. "Oh, Mrs Whatsit!"
But Mrs Whatsit did not come.
"Meg," Charles Wallace said. "Meg, just listen to me."
"Okay, I'm listening."
"We've been all wrong, I told you; we haven't understood. We've been fighting our friend, and Father's friend."
"If Father tells me he's our friend maybe I'll believe it. Maybe. Unless he's got Father--under--under a spell, or whatever it is, like you."
"This isn't a fairy tale. Spells indeed," Charles Wallace said. "Meg, you've got to stop fighting and relax. Relax and be happy. Oh, Meg, if you'd just relax you'd realize that all our troubles are over. You don't understand what a wonderful place we've come to. You see, on this planet everything is in perfect order because everybody has learned to relax, to give in, to submit. All you have to do is look quietly and steadily into the eyes of our good friend here, for he is our friend, dear sister, and he will take you in as he has taken me."
"Taken you in is right!" Meg said. "You know you're not you. You know you've never in your life called me dear sister."
"Shut up a minute, Meg," Calvin whispered to her. He looked up at the man with red eyes. "Okay, have your henchmen let us go and stop talking to us through Charles. We know it's you talking, or whatever's talking through you. Anyhow, we know you have Charles hypnotized."
"A most primitive way of putting it," the man with red eyes murmured. He gestured slightly with one finger, and Meg and Calvin were released.
"Thanks," Calvin said wryly. "Now, if you are our friend, will you tell us who--or what--you are?"
"It is not necessary for you to know who I am. I am the Prime Coordinator, that is all you need to know."
"But you're being spoken through, aren't you, just like Charles Wallace? Are you hypnotized, too?"
"I told you that was too primitive a word, without the correct connotations."
"Is it you who are going to take us to Mr. Murry?"
"No. It is not necessary, nor is it possible, for me to leave here. Charles Wallace will conduct you."
"Charles Wallace?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Now." The man with red eyes made the frightening grimace that passed for his smile. "Yes, I think it might as well be now."
Charles Wallace gave a slight jerk of his head, saying, "Come," and started to walk in a strange, gliding, mechanical manner. Calvin followed him. Meg hesitated, looking from the man with red eyes to Charles and Calvin. She wanted to reach out and grab Calvin's hand, but it seemed that ever since they had begun their journeyings she had been looking for a hand to hold, so she stuffed her fists into her pockets and walked along behind the two boys.--I've got to be b
rave, she said to herself.--I will be.
They moved down a long, white, and seemingly endless corridor. Charles Wallace continued the jerky rhythm of his walk and did not once look back to see if they were with him.
Suddenly Meg broke into a run and caught up with Calvin. "Cal," she said, "listen. Quick. Remember Mrs Whatsit said your gift was communication and that was what she was giving you. We've been trying to fight Charles physically, and that isn't any good. Can't you try to communicate with him? Can't you try to get in to him?"
"Golly day, you're right." Calvin's face lit up with hope, and his eyes, which had been somber, regained their usual sparkle. "I've been in such a swivet--It may not do any good, but at least I can try." They quickened their pace until they were level with Charles Wallace. Calvin reached out for his arm, but Charles flung it off.
"Leave me alone," he snarled.
"I'm not going to hurt you, old sport," Calvin said. "I'm just trying to be friendly. Let's make it up, hunh?"
"You mean you're coming around?" Charles Wallace asked.
"Sure," Calvin's voice was coaxing. "We're reasonable people, after all. Just look at me for a minute, Charlibus."
Charles Wallace stopped and turned slowly to look at Calvin with his cold, vacant eyes. Calvin looked back, and Meg could feel the intensity of his concentration. An enormous shudder shook Charles Wallace. For a brief flash his eyes seemed to see. Then his whole body twirled wildly, and went rigid. He started his marionette's walk again. "I should have known better," he said. "If you want to see Murry you'd better come with me and not try any more hanky-panky."
"Is that what you call your father--Murry?" Calvin asked. Meg could see that he was angry and upset at his near success.
"Father? What is a father?" Charles Wallace intoned. "Merely another misconception. If you feel the need of a father, then I would suggest that you turn to IT."
IT again.
"Who's this IT?" Meg asked.
"All in good time," Charles Wallace said. "You're not ready for IT yet. First of all I will tell you something about this beautiful, enlightened planet of Camazotz." His voice took on the dry, pedantic tones of Mr. Jenkins. "Perhaps you do not realize that on Camazotz we have conquered all illness, all deformity--"
"We?" Calvin interrupted.
Charles continued as though he had not heard. And of course he hadn't, Meg thought. "We let no one suffer. It is so much kinder simply to annihilate anyone who is ill. Nobody has weeks and weeks of runny noses and sore throats. Rather than endure such discomfort they are simply put to sleep."
A Wrinkle in Time Page 10
