Level 7

MAY 16

The talk about Level 6 and the PBY Command has aroused a lot of interest on our own level.

People’s feelings seem to be ambivalent. On the one hand, we feel superior. Firstly, because we are inferior—deeper in the earth. Secondly, because our country relies mainly on the offensive branch. Thirdly, because we are a smaller group.

On the other hand, though, we have to admit that the operations of Level 6 are more intricate and require greater skill. The PBY officers probably have higher technical qualifications, and in that sense they must be superior. So argues X-107, and he is probably right.

We also feel both a liking and an enmity for Level 6. They are a branch of the military forces, entrusted, like ourselves, with the country’s safety—so we feel friendly towards them. But they are also a different branch of those forces—so there is a feeling of competition.

Of course, all these feelings are really just speculations as to possible feelings. Actual feelings are rather difficult to have when one knows so little about their object. For the crew of Level 6 are 1,400 feet above our heads, and there is no communication between us.

Or is there none? It seems to me there must be. If the enemy attacked, it would be PBY Command which would know about it first. They must have some way of telling us.

This is an exciting idea: contact with outside. Or rather, with a more outside inside. But there is no point in guessing about that kind of thing when you have no information to go on. Perhaps today’s talk will say something about it.

The talk was about Level 6 again, but communications were not mentioned. What we did learn was that they are not yet kept below ground all the time. They spend a fortnight down, and then they are replaced and spend a fortnight at a camp near the entrance to the underground before coming down again.

This means that there must be at least 4,000 men and women trained for PBY Command, because there have to be as many people spending their two weeks above as there are manning the level.

But it also means that the people on Level 6 can see daylight and….

No, better not think about that. Anyway, the system has its snags. As X-107 pointed out to me, when war starts the people on Level 6 at that moment will stay there, and the other 2,000 will have to find refuge on a higher, less secure level, or even stay on the surface.

The thought of that should make us feel superior again, I suppose, though the idea of spending two weeks down and two weeks up is most attractive. As far as I could gather from the talk, the Level 6 crew live more or less as surface creatures who come down at regular intervals to work as one might go off on a business trip. It has not been necessary for their social life below ground—marriage, for instance—to be organised as ours is, though presumably that will come if and when Level 6 is sealed off.

X-107 has suggested that the life of the Level 6 crew is arranged in this way not simply for convenience: according to him, the half-up, half-down life is as necessary to them as it is out of the question for us. “We’re the most important military branch because our action is offensive,” he said, “and offensive action isn’t directly concerned with what’s going on in our country, so it isn’t necessary for us to keep in touch with the surface. More than that, contact of any kind with the world up there might upset us in our work by making us sentimental about the crust of the earth, which it may be our duty to lay waste. PBY Command, on the other hand, has the task of protecting the surface from attack, and the more the crew of Level 6 can see of the earth, the keener they’ll be to do their job well. Also there’s not so much point in sealing them off for security, because—as the talk said—it’s doubtful whether their operations will be very effective anyhow.”

This argument seemed sound enough to me. There really are considerable differences between the two commands, even though the talks have tried to stress the links between Level 6 and ourselves. Today the speaker emphasised the fact that Levels 6 and 7 are the military nerve-centres of our country, and that all the other levels are for civilians only. In the functional sense, broadly speaking, we are one unit.

This is the reason why the two levels were organised along such similar lines, we were told. And though Level 6 is 1,400 feet nearer the surface—for purely technical reasons—it is in the same area. In fact, it is directly above our heads, which makes us close together in the physical sense. (I think there must be some very close communication between the two levels. Otherwise why locate them in the same area?) Moreover, there is only one Level 6, as there is one Level 7. Other levels, the speaker told us, do not have this characteristic: they are dispersed in several units, the number of which varies from level to level in a way which will be explained to us in a later talk.

This sounds interesting. I look forward to hearing what happens on the other five levels.