Level 7

And because they seemed my only possible link with the outside world, I felt I was speaking through them to real creatures, men and women living under the sun.

Apparently my friend X-107 must have had similar feelings, for he was not inclined to talk either. Strange though it may seem, I do not remember hearing anyone discuss our predicament seriously before today. It seems that our plight did not create any quick, warm comradeship—the kind of fraternity which is supposed to spring up when, say, people are shipwrecked together. Instead there was a curious lack of interest in other people; perhaps even some resentment, as if each thought the others were responsible for his present state.

It goes without saying that everybody was clearly aware of the situation, even if they did not speak a word about it. You could tell they all knew by the general air of resignation: the way they walked, ate their meals, and talked banalities if they talked at all.

Today, however, I was looking through my pages of diary when X-107 suddenly spoke, in a voice revealing some warmth, some sunshine from above: “Are you writing something?”

The direct, personal question and the friendly tone of his voice made me turn round from the desk and look him full in the face. For the first time I was really stirred to find out just what my room-mate looked like.

X-107 has an open and rather kind face, suggesting a man of quiet disposition, well-balanced and firm. He is perhaps a year or two older than I, which may be why I had a pleasant sensation as if I were talking to an elder brother when I answered his question: “Yes, I’m writing a diary. I found some writing-paper in the drawer here, and that gave me the idea. It’s a sort of relief, you know!”

That broke the ice completely, and at once we started talking freely, as if we had known each other for years.

Oddly enough, he did not complain. He considered our service on Level 7 a necessity: unpleasant, true, but still an unavoidable development in view of the recent progress in military science. “To complain about our lot,” he said, “is as futile and senseless as to complain about death. What one cannot escape one must accept; and the less fuss, the better.”

I said something about dungeons, prison and solitary confinement. He said he had felt that way about our life down here, too, at first; but now he was beginning to understand how even imprisonment is not an absolute condition. “Some people,” he said, “feel imprisoned when they can’t travel through space. Others can feel free in a small room, if they are able to think or write.” He smiled as he said this, and glanced at the sheets of paper lying on the desk, clearly implying that writing my diary might have this releasing effect.

I had admitted this already, in a way, by calling it a relief. And now, listening to his incisive, firmly stated arguments, I was almost persuaded that I could come to feel about things in the same way that he did. It was comforting to hope that his way of thought might become mine.

Now I am not so sure that it ever will. I want to be able to feel the way X-107 feels or thinks he feels, but this comes hard to me. Still, the knowledge that I am sharing a room with someone stronger than myself, someone who has found a way of adjusting himself to the new conditions, is in itself very comforting. I feel a little less lonely now, not so deep in despair. If a human being can get adjusted to the idea of spending his life on Level 7, then perhaps one day I shall get adjusted myself. If I cannot get out of here, at least let me have some sort of tolerable life as long as I live! If….

No, maybe it is better not to ‘if’ too much. Let me look around, see what is happening, meet people, make friends, ‘get adjusted’.

MARCH 25

Today I asked X-107 the question which has been worrying me all the time since my arrival on Level 7. The question of why we had to lose our freedom. I already knew some of the answers—they had been implied or stated in that initial announcement of our fate which I had listened to on my bunk four days ago—but I still wanted to talk the thing over.

“Why,” I asked X-107, “were we condemned to life imprisonment down here? Couldn’t we do our work on the surface of the earth? Hidden away in the middle of a desert, or something? Why here, so deep, so completely cut off?”

“Now you’re talking like a child,” he replied. “PBX Command had to be secured—secured absolutely—against surprise attack, an attack which might have hit us in your secluded desert hide-out just as fatally as in the centre of a metropolitan area. If it had, our country would have been knocked out without being able to fire back a single shot Down here on Level 7 we’re safe from surprises like that. Even if the enemy destroys our country in a surprise attack, we—you and I—can retaliate and destroy his country.”

“Still,” I tried to argue, “even if PBX Command had to be located on Level 7, there was surely no need to imprison us here! Why can’t we be relieved by other crews and go on leave every now and then?”

“That would be very dangerous,” X-107 answered. “If you were able to get out, you might come back with a destructive weapon, or a destructive idea, which could put PBX Command out of action. Contact with the outside world could mean contact with spies, with enemies, with pacifists. The government would be foolish to take such a risk.”

“So we had to be imprisoned for life in order to safeguard our country’s powers of retaliation?”

“Exactly,” he replied. “And to ensure its survival too: even if a surprise attack annihilates the population up above, down here we will go on living—after taking vengeance, of course.”

I asked: “But what happens if there is no war?”

“Well,” came the unperturbed answer of my room-mate, “our job is to be ready at all times to pull the trigger—to push the button. If no command to do so comes, we shall have served our country just the same; for if our enemy refrains from attacking us, it will only be because he knows how well prepared and unassailable we are down here on Level 7. So, on Level 7 we have to stay.”

I could find no flaw in his argument. Our imprisonment on Level 7 is a necessity.

MARCH 26

My closer contact with X-107 is a help to me. We talk to each other about various things and this, sometimes, makes me forget my situation. Another thing that helps is the lounge which has been opened for everybody on Level 7.

The announcement came over the loudspeaker—this is the only way announcements and orders are made known—yesterday at noon. As the lounge is very small, like most rooms here, and the demand is expected to be considerable, each person has been allotted certain hours when he may use it. I say ‘certain hours’, but that is misleading. Half an hour each day. That is my ration, anyway.

The room is small for a lounge—about fifteen feet by twenty. It asserts its identity, though, by having its name painted bold and clear on the door, one of the many doors in the long wall of the dining-room. When I walked in, there were already some ten or fifteen people there, none of whom I remembered seeing before.

Some of them were women. They all seemed quite nice and looked young, strong and healthy, though I found none of them specially attractive. I went up to one who was standing by herself at the time, and introduced myself. She was a nurse, N-527.

What I liked about her was her calmness. I do not know how she managed it, but she seemed even more calm and relaxed than X-107. Perhaps women are more self-sufficient than men (provided they have men) and less affected by environment. If so I envy them—for the first time in my life.

After a while another man approached us, introducing himself as E-647, ‘E’ standing for Electrical Engineer. He was behaving rather nervously, and soon had me on edge too. I decided to look for other company and leave him to the nurse. I had the impression he was grateful for that.

For a moment I stood alone. Then another woman came up to me, possibly a little older than the nurse,