Level 7

SEPTEMBER 26

We have just about given up trying to get an answer out of Level 6. It is generally assumed that they are dead, though even the scare-mongers of yesterday are too awed by what this means to talk about it openly any more. But you can read people’s thoughts in their faces. This seems to touch our level more closely than anything which has happened before. If it is possible for a shelter, a deep shelter with its own energy and air supplies, to go out like a light, for no apparent reason—then anything can happen.

So people here are losing their sense of security. Some are looking distinctly nervous. Even X-107m, who has developed a tic at the left-hand corner of his mouth.

Until now the feeling has been: “We are safe. We are deep in the earth. We are the most privileged, and the chosen few who have survived and will go on living.”

The feeling creeping in now is: “Shall we survive? Are we not just the last to die, waiting longer than the others for our turn to come? How soon shall we perish? How shall we perish? From plant decay and lack of oxygen? From some trouble we cannot even diagnose? Shall we know that we are dying, or will the blow be sudden and catch us unawares?’”