Level 7

Here she was interrupted by P-867, who had been listening to the last part of our conversation. “Stories like those are nonsense anyhow,” she objected, “and they interfere with the normal development of the child. I hope you’re not going to teach that kind of rubbish to the children down here.”

“That’s just what I was going to say,” replied R-747 quietly. “We can’t tell the children that the way to hell is downwards, and to heaven upwards. We’ll have to reverse the story: hell will be somewhere up there, and paradise deep inside the earth—deeper than Level 7, even. Or perhaps Level 7 itself will be the new heaven.”

P-867 wanted to interrupt again, but I broke in before she did—on purpose, because her constant company was becoming increasingly irksome to me, while the problems raised by R-747 were interesting and provided new food for thought. Addressing R-747, I said: “So what you’re trying to do is to create a new mythology, one adapted to fit the facts and supply the needs of Level 7.”

P-867 snorted: “But why do we need mythology at all? To hell with all this nonsense!”

“Don’t you mean ‘to heaven’ with it?” I asked; but my little quip reverberated in a sinister way in my mind, so I added crossly: “What do psychologists understand about mythology, anyway?”

This made her angry and she found some excuse to leave us. I cheered up at that, for the creation of myths seemed a fascinating pastime to me, and it was obvious I would not have been able to go on discussing the subject with P-867 around.

Unfortunately our time in the lounge was up a minute later, so I had to break off my talk with R-747.

APRIL 25

I was indeed lucky yesterday. A few minutes after finishing that entry in my diary I walked around to the lounge and had R-747 all to myself for the whole half hour. P-867 did not put in an appearance, so we were able to carry on our discussion of mythology quite undisturbed.

Today it was not so good. P-867 reappeared and tried to keep me at her side by giving me a detailed progress report on X-117, who seems to be getting better. But as we were leaving the lounge R-747 was able to hand me a sheet of paper, asking me to let her have it back the next time we met.

I have just finished reading what is written on it: a story for the children of the future generations. I find it a very interesting story, and here it is, copied word for word: