Level 7

APRIL 13

I am not finding the ‘Know Thy Level’ talks as interesting as I thought I would. Today they tried to explain the system of personal identification on Level 7. Everybody’s ‘name’ ends with the digit 7, because we live on Level 7. The letters at the beginning refer to functions, which everybody knew anyway; and the other two figures have some more complicated explanation which I did not try to understand. No doubt there is a system behind it, as with everything else down here.

When the talk was over X-107 tried to discuss with me the reason for calling each other by letters and numbers instead of personal or family names—a practice which we were persuaded to adopt back at the training camp, so it comes quite naturally on Level 7. The reason behind it, he thought, was that the old names would have nostalgic associations with life on the surface and so would make it harder for us to get adjusted to our new existence.

It may well be so, but I was not interested in discussing it. What did interest me was X-107’s efforts to make me talk in spite of my evident lack of enthusiasm, because he realised I was upset about something; as he had done on previous occasions. Which must mean that he felt some concern about me. And if he is not entirely unsociable, then perhaps my own case is not so hopeless either.

My speculations engaged me so, I hardly listened to what he was saying. Suppose we were not entirely unsociable, I thought, only less sociable than most people—people up there. Suppose the difference were of this sort—one of degree, not of kind—well, the implications would be enormous. I might at least be capable of liking somebody.

As the saying goes: ‘If the fire doesn’t boil the kettle, it may stop it freezing.’ Perhaps X-117 is not the only sociable fish to slip through the psychologists’ net.