Level 7

though not older twenty-five. I learnt that she was a psychologist, P-867. She was another calm person, but her calmness seemed of a different kind—a bit artificial, as if she were proud of the achievement—rather than the calmness of a naturally serene disposition. As we talked this got on my nerves.

The first thing she said was, how did I feel? I did not feel inclined,to confide in a person I had only just met. I evaded the question: said I was very busy and had had no time to analyse my feelings. She brushed this aside and promptly suggested that I was either deliberately lying or else trying to escape from reality. In either case, she maintained, my attitude was not healthy: “Face reality and talk to other people about your feelings. That’s the best way to get adjusted.”

Trying to escape her professional zeal, which made me feel like a laboratory guinea-pig, I asked her about her own feelings. “Oh,” she said, “I feel fine.” And she went on to explain why she felt so well. The experience of living on Level 7 was most interesting from the psychological point of view. She would have loved to undertake a piece of psychological research into the response of Level 7’s crew to their new surroundings. (So I was a guinea-pig!) It would make a fascinating article if only she could publish the results of her research, which she obviously could not do on Level 7.

At that point I interrupted her: “So you too think in terms of ‘if’?” She did not understand. I explained that I had been thinking in terms of ‘if’: if I had not been chosen for Level 7, if it were possible to go back up on leave, if I had the disposition of a woman….

“You mustn’t think in those terms,” she protested. “That’s escapism. You must find here and now what you can find here and now.” It sounded like some kind of slogan. “Don’t look backwards and don’t think hypothetically. There’s a lot of meaning in our life here. You have a job to do, a country to defend. You have human company here—even female company.” And she suddenly giggled. “What more can a man want, tell me that?”

I answered, almost inaudibly: “Sunshine.”

She remained quiet for a long while and then vigorously shook her head: “No. Sunshine can’t in itself be a real need. I’ve studied quite a few psychological systems, and not one of them ever regarded the quest for sunshine as a basic motivation of human beings, or as a possible foundation for neurosis. Definitely not. There must be some other reason for your state of mind. Sunshine is just a symbol. What lies behind that is the real cause.”

At that moment the loudspeaker announced that our time in the lounge was up. As we parted outside the door she remarked: “You never know—one day you may need psychological treatment. I’ll be happy to help you.” At this she giggled again.

MARCH 27

I am trying to divert myself by learning what I can about the technical arrangements on Level 7. In their way they are pretty remarkable. This is a very small world, but it seems to be quite self-sufficient. Although it lies so deep underground it has its own supply of energy, food and all the other essential commodities needed by its crew. We might be on a ship, equipped for an endless voyage.

For one thing, we shall never run out of fuel. Everything here works by electricity from dynamos powered by an atomic reactor which can supply all the energy we want for a thousand years. There is nothing new in this principle, but when you think of all the gadgets which are using up electricity twenty-four hours a day down here you appreciate how impossible life would be without an atomic reactor.

The problem of storing nourishment must have been more complicated; but at dinner today somebody provided some interesting information about that. (People have started to be more talkative lately.) He said—and he appeared to know what he was talking about—that dehydrated food in enormous quantities is stored in a huge deep-freeze. At each meal the necessary amount is automatically taken out of the freeze, warmed, mixed with water and served on our plates. Being dehydrated, it takes up very little space. Even so, the storage of enough to feed 500 people for 500 years is no simple matter.

The man’s mention of 500 years made everybody fall silent for a few moments. I expect the others were thinking the same as I was. I sometimes feel as if I have been down here months already, not just days; and to think of Level 7 in terms of centuries is beyond my imagination.

One of the women made it her task to break the silence by asking how enough water could be stored underground. “There is no dehydrated water,” she added, and was rewarded by a few bleak smiles from the rest of us.

However, we gathered from the expert that there is no need to store water, and that the supply is unlimited. In fact it is the only commodity which can never run short. It reaches us from deep underground sources, inexhaustible because of precipitation.

“At first,” the expert said, “it was feared that the water might become contaminated in the event of an atomic war. Then it was found that the thick layers of earth through which the water has to pass on its way down act as excellent filters. We stand no risk of drinking impure water.”

Our meal was nearly over, when somebody raised the question of refuse. The disposal of sewage and other rubbish on Level 7 was surely as big a problem as the storage of food.

But this problem too has been solved with great ingenuity. All the refuse is led through an ordinary drainage system into a special machine which separates off the fluids. These are pumped out of Level 7 to an earth level where they are absorbed, and the dehydrated solids are compressed and transferred to a special storage space. Logically enough —though the idea struck me with a rather chilly surprise when I heard it—this space is the space left by the food we have consumed. The planners of Level 7 could not afford to waste an inch; so the deep-freeze which contains the food also holds, on the other side of a sealed but moving wall, the sewage. As the stock of food decreases and the bulk of refuse increases, so the moving wall is pushed along by the difference in pressure and one substance takes up the space left by the other. This is a very slow process; but in 500 years what is now a filled food-storage room will have become a large sewage pit.

All this is quite interesting, but I find the idea that it will take 500 years to fill that pit rather oppressive.

MARCH 28

When I walked into the lounge today I found a trio of officers squatting on their heels in one corner of the room playing some kind of gambling game. One of them spun a coin in the air and the others were betting on whether it would fall heads or tails. They must have had quite a bit of cash in their pockets when they were brought down here, for the little piles of notes and coins in front of them were sizeable.

One of the three seemed to be enjoying the game enormously. When I first went across to watch over their shoulders he was losing, but then he had a lucky break, backing tails every time, and grew very excited. Then his luck changed once more. He started doubling up, trying to regain his losses, but in a few more spins of the coin he was cleaned out.

Anxious to stay in the game, he asked one of the other players to lend him some money. The other man asked what would happen if he lost that money too: how could he pay it back? The excited one answered that he would not lose. The other two grinned at each other and shrugged.

“Look,” said the excited one, “my luck is bound to change soon. I’ve just had a bad run—all right. But it can’t go on for ever. In fact it means I’ll have a good run now. The law of averages, remember?”

This argument did not impress the others, and the unlucky one was still moneyless. But he could not keep quiet and withdraw. Nettled by their indifference to his persuasion, he tried abuse. “You’re a fool,” he shouted at the man he had tried to borrow from. “Why are you so keen to hold on to your lousy money? What do you want money for down here? Can you spend it on anything? Can you buy yourself a drink? Idiot!”

This was too much for the other officer, who, being less eloquent, was on the point of assaulting the would-be borrower when the loudspeaker ordered the latter to leave the lounge immediately and await further