Level 7

MAY 22

Today P persuaded me to join her again in the little room in the psychology department, as we both happened to be free at the same time. I was not eager to go, but I could think of no excuse on the spur of the moment and so I agreed.

I lay down on the couch as usual, while P took the chair behind me and started to chatter. I hardly listened and really had no idea what she was saying, for my mind was moving around Levels 5, 4 and 3.

I was wondering how closely the enemy’s underground shelters resembled our own. The shelters for civilians, I mean. There seemed little doubt that the deepest levels would be reserved for the push-button military forces, as ours were. Ways of life and ideologies might differ, but bottom-level priority for the armed forces was an obvious military necessity.

But how about the civilian levels? What were the differences there? It seemed to me again that the enemy’s arrangements were probably very much like ours: who was more likely to be on their lowest civilian level than the politicians, administrators and retired generals? As for the other levels, there might be the difference that in one country the rich got better shelter, and in another country the mighty.

But was this really such a big difference? I wondered. The rich were mighty and the mighty were rich. And atomic scientists and technicians and engineers fitted both categories: nowadays they were well-off and influential in any part of the world.

Taken all in all, I decided, whatever the differences in ideology on the surface, the inside might look very similar. (I mean the surface and the inside of the earth, of course. Or do I?)

I became aware that P was trying to get me to answer a question. She repeated it several times until I grasped it: “Which do you like best, our official privacy room or this one?”

Still only half with her, I answered: “Oh, they look much the same.”