Level 7

Does this mean I have become self-sufficient? I want nothing of anybody or anything down here. Perhaps that makes me the most self-sufficient creature on Level 7. Like a god!

Maybe I am a god, or about to become a god! Let R-747 invent myths about me, the god who pushed the buttons. X-127, the push-button god.

No, I have not pushed the buttons yet. But I am self-sufficient like a god. Not as happy, though. Not even as happy as the butterfly which is born and dies on the same day. But who said that gods should be happy?

I am a god. The god wants to make a bargain with a butterfly. He wishes to be a butterfly for a day—but outside the caves, up there—and he offers the butterfly in return an eternal existence—down here.

What do you say to that, butterfly? Will you agree to the bargain? It’s a good one: eternity for one day of flying among the flowers.

The butterfly rejects my offer. What is it saying?

It says it will not exchange one day of happiness for eternal misery! Damnable butterfly! The audacity to refuse a god’s bargain! To defy a god! To defy God!

I shall curse you, butterfly, you colourful hedonist, I shall curse you till the end of your days!

It says something. It dares to answer! What is it?

“I do not mind your curses, O God, for my day is short.”

It flies away.

Butterfly! Butterfly! Listen to me, don’t go away! Stay with me, I won’t curse you. But stay here with me. Wait! Please stay!

JUNE 7

Today I came back from the psychological department. I spent about a week there.

Apparently I was going mad. Quite raving, as I can see for myself from what I was writing on May 31. All that nonsense about gods and butterflies! It seems I even got my entomology wrong: butterflies, so P told me when I had finished muttering about them under the drug, live for longer than a day. Some even hibernate!

Anyway, I am all right now. Only weak and tired and empty, as if someone had removed my inside. Metaphorically, that is. My mind and soul feel empty, just as if they had been purged in the way my stomach was, after the wedding chocolate.

It is a good thing, this mental purge. I do not suffer now. Nor do I enjoy my awareness of things. I just am and do not mind being.

I still have the memory of something being wrong with me, but the thing itself has gone away. It was a more complicated business than the stomach purge, though. They had to give me drugs and some electric shock treatment to clean out my mind. But now I am quiet and all right.

JUNE 9

It happened this morning.

I started my spell of duty in the PBX Operations Room at 08.00 hours. At 09.00 the yellow light came on above the screen. Two minutes later X-117 walked into the room and took his place at the other table, ready for whatever might follow the yellow warning. The Operations Room was now prepared for action. We sat in silence, watching the light.

At 09.12 hours the functional loudspeaker in the room suddenly ordered: “Attention! Prepare for action!” Simultaneously, the yellow light was replaced by a red one.

The loudspeaker spoke again: “Push Button A1!”

I pressed the button, and X-117 must have pushed his too, for Zone A on the screen suddenly became covered with red points. This meant that the one-to-five megaton rockets had been released and were now flying with incredible speed towards their targets. Zone A being relatively near, the results were to be expected in less than half an hour.

I was sitting in my place watching the screen. I was more tense than usual, but I did not feel nervous. Perhaps because of the treatment I underwent last week. Perhaps because military action—for the first time I was doing what I had come down here to do—acted as a sort of relief.

I glanced across the room at X-117, and I thought he looked very much on edge. Though the room was at a comfortable temperature, his face was sweating profusely, as if he had been pushing not a button but the rockets themselves.

Then I turned my eyes back to the screen, and sat speculating as to whether it would all amount to no more than an exchange of smallish bombs limited to one area, or whether the operation would develop into full-scale hostilities.

At 09.32 hours the first rocket hit enemy territory and one of the red spots turned into a rather larger circular red blob. Almost at once more such blobs appeared here and there over Zone A. I saw how the area of destruction grew wider and wider.

Meanwhile, though, some of the little red spots were disappearing, particularly the ones deeper in Zone A. Apparently the enemy’s interceptors were quite efficient.

Then, at 09.55, the loudspeaker sounded again: “Attention! Push Button A2!” And immediately afterwards: “Push Button A3!”

I reached quickly, and so did X-117, and the loudspeaker had hardly finished before Zone A became covered with a mass of blue and golden points.