answer: “But it dies the one death.”
This time their reply came back in a flash: “Divided we live, united we die!”
SEPTEMBER 30
I spent this afternoon writing a short story for a possible broadcast. Here it is.
Once upon a time there were two friends called A and B. They had known each other for years and used to spend a great deal of time together. Even when A had found himself a girl friend, and B had found himself a girl friend, the two of them still enjoyed each other’s company so much that they used to go out with their girl friends together. But they were not at all alike to look at. A wore his hair smooth and sleekly shining, and his girl said she liked it that way; while B’s hair stuck up like the spines of a porcupine, which was the style his girl favoured.
Each of them preferred his own hair-cut and did not approve of the style which seemed to please the other one’s girl friend, but for a long time both were reluctant to say so. Then one day A said to B, in the friendliest way: “Look here, my friend, I do think it would be so much better if you cut your hair my way.” And B replied: “Since you mention it, I’ve often thought your hair would look much better cut like mine.”
To begin with they discussed the relative merits and demerits of the two styles most amicably. But when each saw that the other had no intention of changing his mind, the argument began to grow heated.
When A got back home one day, he looked for the largest pair of scissors he could find and laid them ready for the morrow.
And when B got home, he too set aside the biggest pair of scissors he possessed.
Next day, when the two friends met, they brandished their scissors and flew at each other’s heads, paying no attention to their girl friends’ protesting cries. Before you could say
While the two girl friends said: “I could never love a man with a bald head”—and ran off down the road as fast as they could go.
OCTOBER 1
My story was broadcast this morning. People liked it. It went down well with the other side too, and they broadcast a humorous retort: “Buy yourself a wig, bald fellow!”
My reply was: “There are no wigs to be had underground. We shall have to stay bald.”
No, not everything that is gone can be replaced. A bald head is bald—even with a wig. A destroyed world is destroyed.
OCTOBER 2
Now our ex-enemy’s broadcasts have stopped. Maybe it is just a technical hitch. But maybe—no, it is better not to think about it. Let us wait and see.
X-107m and P seem to get along well. I do not see P often, as I prefer not to go to the lounge, while she seldom visits her husband in our room. But X-107m appears very satisfied with his lot.
He does not keep me company in quite the way he did before. I listen to music more now, even though the tape has repeated itself many times since our arrival here. The same thing every twelve days. But, even so, there is something about a piece of quality which enables you to listen to it again and again.
OCTOBER 3
They are silent. They must have died. Suddenly, like Level 6. Perhaps from the same cause—the unknown one. We shall never know it, unless we perish the same way. And if we do, we shall not know it for long.
People on Level 7 are distressed, deeply distressed. I see around me the same long faces that marked the first days of our seclusion in these dungeons. People look quite as unhappy as they did before they became adjusted.
They feel lonely again. Not because of the seclusion, but because they are alone in the world. There is no longer even an ex-enemy to communicate with.
Also they are afraid. They fear gamma rays and neutrons, alpha particles and beta particles. They are afraid to eat and to drink and to breathe. But perhaps most of all they are afraid of the unknown. The fact that they do not know how and when they may be struck down makes them nervous. They are afraid to sleep, for they may never wake.
Spiritually, radiation is already active on Level 7. It spreads panic without even being here. This might be the most powerful form of psychological warfare. And the most effortless: nobody does anything, and the fear is universal. The idea of radiation enters the mind imperceptibly, just as the real radiation invisibly penetrates the body.
OCTOBER 4
The ex-enemy has been given up for dead. We
How long shall we last? Shall we survive down here?
Raise families? Keep humanity alive until one day man creeps out of these miserable holes?
Or shall we perish as the other levels did? And will we know what has hit us or not? Shall we be hit suddenly and unawares, or shall we have to watch death spreading all around us? Who knows?
The atomic reactor which supplies our energy has to undergo some repair work, so everything will come to a halt for an hour. I intend to stop writing and go to bed before they switch off the lighting. It will not inconvenience many people to be without light at this time of night. I expect most of them are asleep anyway. The others can discover what it is like to be as blind as real moles, which should be quite interesting.
OCTOBER 5
I was asleep last night long before the reactor was repaired. This morning I was told that the job took not one hour but three, and that there was an accident: one of the atomic energy officers working on it, AE-307m, suffered a very strong overdose of radiation and died before morning.
Like X-117, AE-307m was given a short obituary over the general loudspeaker system. “He gave his life to ensure our survival,” the speaker said, and his praise of the dead man seemed to me quite fair. With no reactor we should last a very short time indeed!
It is a sad business, this. Everybody feels sorry for AE-307m. And for his widow.
