Level 7

To begin with, fresh air will be drawn down from the surface, not supplied by plants. It will pass through filters, of course, but how effective they will be in the event of a full-scale atomic war remains to be seen. Even the speaker did not sound too optimistic about that. “To supply so many people with air by means of plants was technically impossible—certainly in the time at our disposal,” he said. “It will be a stupendous achievement if, by the time the war starts, the entire population has been provided with shelters of any sort.”

The energy for Levels 2 and 1 is supplied by conventional generators and not by atomic reactors, which are too few to go round and which would have to be supervised by experts. The conventional generators, which are much easier for non-specialists to handle, will be fed by pipes from fuel reservoirs. Some of these are underground, but most of them are on the surface. In the event of a near hit the latter sort will be destroyed, and then the dependent shelter, even if not damaged itself, will be in a fix. But this cannot be helped.

Food for the top levels will be supplied just as it is lower down. But there will not be much of it: enough for six months on Level 2 and only enough for one month on Level 1.

“This may surprise you,” the speaker said, “but I think you will see how pointless it would be to make provision for longer periods—even if the storage space were available. Levels 2 and 1 are too close to the surface to resist an all-out enemy attack: 100 feet deep in the case of Level 2, and ten to sixty feet deep in the other. They may perhaps survive blast effects, provided the enemy uses no thermonuclear bombs of the underground-bursting type. If the war should be conducted in such a limited fashion, and if there is no excessive residual radiation, then after a month or so people may be able to go back to the surface without disastrous results. But if total war is waged, there will be so much physical destruction and air pollution that most living creatures so near the surface will not be able to survive. Possibly some of the Level 2 units, or even Level 1, will be lucky, if they are far enough away from an underground explosion. But this is not at all likely.”

The outlook seems grim; but one must agree that there is little point in giving shelters enough provisions to last for years if they are not physically strong enough to withstand the explosion of an underground-bursting multi-megaton bomb.

It is clear that people on these levels stand a very slim chance of surviving unless the war is a fairly limited one. But it is not likely to be. It strikes me that Levels 2 and 1 must have been built more for their psychological effect than for any other reason. They will mislead the safety-seeking masses into supposing they can find it from ten to a hundred feet underground!

MAY 24

Level 2 has room for about one million people. It is subdivided into forty units holding 25,000 each.

The social composition of its future inhabitants is peculiarly interesting. This level is destined to receive all kinds of maladjusted people: peace-mongers, extreme oppositionists, critics of society and other cranks.

“The idea behind this,” said the speaker today, “is to appease all the doubtful and subversive elements by giving them a more secure and privileged shelter level. It is better to adopt these measures than to resort to sheer force alone.”

The ‘alone’ was significant, I thought. I do not know how much force has been, or will be, necessary; but there are plenty of legal restrictions to protect the atomic means of protection from the assaults of all sorts of sceptics. These people must have been mollified by the promise of a deeper shelter. I say ‘must have been’ because I am guessing. I have no way of knowing what the effect actually was, because when I was up on the surface nobody knew about the seven levels. We knew that shelters were being built all over the country—that fact could hardly be bidden—but nobody even suggested that they might possibly be on different levels.

So the peace-mongers and other assorted cranks are fortunate to be booked for Level 2 and not Level 1.

In theory, anyway. In practice the difference will be negligible. Is a shelter 100 feet deep any use against a multi-megaton bomb which explodes underground to produce an effect like an earthquake? Even supposing such a shelter is far enough away from the burst to be safe, half a year’s provisions will only prolong life for a little while: the surface may be polluted for many years—the fall-out of underground bursts would be specially dangerous, not to speak of the ‘rigged’ bombs—and the only alternatives will be to die of starvation underground or be killed by radiation on top.