Level 7

MAY 21

The talks about the different levels still hold their fascination for me. P cannot understand why, and it is useless trying to discuss such things with her. X-107 is the right sort of person for that—he always has been—and I am really lucky to have him as my room-mate.

The talks have tended to dwell on the differences between Levels 5, 4 and 3, which makes one forget that, in a sense, they form one very distinct group. I was reminded of the fact by X-107, who pointed out not only the similarity of their equipment and facilities, but also their basic social unity. “Despite the distinctions you may make between the élite of 20,000, the group of 100,000 and the mass of half a million people,” he said, “they add up to only 620,000. This sounds a lot if you think of the difficulty of housing them all underground, but very few if you remember the size of the nation.”

He was perfectly right. With a nine-figure population to take into consideration, 620,000 is a mere drop in the bucket.

“So,” he went on, “to be picked for these levels is a real privilege. To be included in Levels 3 and 4, let alone Level 5, you’d have to belong to the pick of society—or else be married to the right person or have the right parents. Then if people are going to bring their families down with them, I suppose they’ll want to stay together and live something like a normal civilian life.” X-107 shook his head doubtfully. “That’s not nearly as orderly and rational as our system. I’m sure there will be awful complications.”

I smiled at his seriousness and said, with some mischief: “But what will an élite do when it’s all on its own. If an élite hasn’t a crowd to contrast itself with, what will happen to it? I think living by themselves may prove hard for our select civilians—and not only the honoured few on Level 5.”

X-107 thought this might indeed be an interesting sociological problem. He suggested that, under the pressure of seclusion, each group would develop new fine grades of social distinction within itself, so that before long each underground unit would form a little social pyramid of its own.

I found this idea fascinating. “Who do you think would come out on the very top in a cave of, say, 5,000 top people?” I asked. “It couldn’t be the statesmen, because down here there won’t be much in the way of international politics.”

X-107 disagreed: he thought that international matters could be negotiated from the caves by means of radio.

“Even if that’s so,” I retorted, “they won’t have so much national politics to talk about. There will surely be very little going on the international sphere after an atomic war. Radioactivity will keep everybody below ground for a long time, and they won’t have a chance to build more atomic rockets to replace the ones we’ve fired. No more rockets, no more wars. There will be no point in making alliances either. No alliances, no wars—politics won’t be politics any more.”

“There’s still something else they can do,” X-107 replied a little wistfully. “They can abuse each other over the radio.”

“If they’re not too busy washing their grandchildren’s diapers,” I added.

This made X-107 laugh. “Maybe this will be the new social yardstick on the civilian levels,” he said. “The person who proves to be most useful, best adjusted, cleverest at improvising things and solving day-to-day problems—he’ll rise in status. The rest will go down.”

“Not down,” I replied jokingly. “To be down is the greatest privilege. Look at us!”