Level 7

That is one of the best things about these post-war days —the radio communication. For the first time since we came down here, we can hear the voice of people outside our own community. Not voices from the surface, admittedly, but voices from other levels. We communicate with the other military people on Level 6, we overhear what the politicians say on Level 5, we enjoy ourselves listening to the abuse from the cranks who survive on Level 2.

And all quite unrestricted, too. Since June 11 the general loudspeaker system has been relaying whatever messages have seemed of most general interest. As far as I can tell, the selection necessary in the circumstances (the alternative would be babel) is the only form of ‘censorship’ being used. There cannot be any other kind, or we should certainly not be allowed to hear the outrageous things said by the enemy and by Level 2.

Level 7, it seems to me, has been reborn. People are taking an interest in what is going on in the world—or rather in the underworld. There is a new sparkle in their eyes.

We are no longer isolated. We have contact with humanity again.

We are not underprivileged any more, doomed to live below while others enjoy the sunshine. Now we appreciate how privileged we are. Our deepest of shelters makes us the most favoured people in the world.

JUNE 14

P is very satisfied with my present mental condition. I am in a much better mood, and have almost forgotten the ordeal of my psychological therapy.

The activity, the feeling of having done something, does me good. I am through with my work now, admittedly, but since the end of hostilities there has been such a bustle on Level 7 that life here seems different.

P thinks it is the therapy which has made the improvement in me. She may be right, but I am sure the radio communication with other levels has something to do with it too. That is how it seems to me, anyway.

I think that if we had had the radio links all the time, from the very beginning, I would never have collapsed. I said so to X-107, but he had his usual sound argument against such an arrangement. “If we’d been able to talk to the outside world all the time,” he said, “we’d have longed to get out. That would have slowed down our adjustment to Level 7. But now that nobody in his right mind would dream of changing his privileged position down here, contact with other levels can only do us good.”

He was right, of course.

Today we heard some very interesting political news. The enemy denied our claim to victory and said that he had won the war. His arguments, and our politicians’ counter-arguments, were quite ingenious.

The enemy maintained that he had succeeded in destroying our country before we destroyed his. His last missiles were fired before 11.00 hours, whereas we pushed our last buttons at 11.20.

Our people admitted this, but interpreted it the opposite way. They said that he who fired the last shot was the victor. The enemy, they suggested, could not fire the last of his missiles at all, because his launching sites had been put out of order by our rockets.

That was not so, said the enemy, promptly resorting to another sort of argument: as he was fighting for the right and ultimately victorious cause, he said, he must have been victorious.

We maintained precisely the same for our cause and ourselves.

Then the politicians started slinging mud at each other. I do not remember all the abusive phrases they used, but here are some of them.

They called each other ‘war criminals’, ‘inhuman beasts’, ‘beastly men’, ‘unprogressive’, ‘reactionary’, ‘selfish’, ‘child murderers’ and ‘arch-criminals of human history’. They also exchanged such honours as ‘barbarian mongols’ and ‘beastly successors of red-skins’, as well as ‘hangmen of humanity’ and ‘electrocutioners of mankind’.

To cut a long story (it is long, it is still going on) short: the war continues! The military levels on both sides are doing nothing. But from their respective caves the politicians fire insults at each other through the intercontinental radio transmitters.

JUNE 15

For all practical purposes, the war is over. The destruction appears to be immense. The enemy and we, his satellites and our allies (or, as he prefers to put his, his allies and our satellites), indeed the entire surface of the earth, have been laid in ruins.

Even the neutral countries seem to have suffered heavy losses. Somehow they got hit too, by both our rockets and the enemy’s. Out of the thousands that were fired, quite a few missed their targets. So the neutrals suffered because of the lack of perfection in the guiding mechanism of the intercontinental rocket. It is a pity, in a way, but obviously it could not be helped.

Some heavily populated and underdeveloped neutral countries could not afford to build any shelters, and so perished completely. Others, better off, were well prepared for the danger and probably had better shelters for the mass of their population than we had.