Level 7

Level 5 is reserved for 20,000 of the country’s top citizens, the real pick of society. It consists of four independent units, in different parts of the country, and each unit will shelter 5,000 people at a depth of 1,500 feet. Their population will consist of top administrators, scientists, politicians, ex-generals (who count as civilians now) and their families.

Of course, there have to be a few technical experts on Level 5 too, people who do not rank high in society but are there simply to help run the place. In principle, however, the top élite is to look after itself with as little help from outsiders as possible. I dare say they will be willing to accept this when the only alternative is for Level 5 to hold less of them.

Each of the Level 5 units is located near one of the country’s administrative or scientific centres, so that, when the moment comes, the privileged among its inhabitants can reach their shelter in time. Once down, they will not need to draw on the surface for any of their needs, for Level 5 is self-sufficient. They will not be quite so well off as we are in this respect, though: there will be relatively few auxiliary experts to help them along—less doctors and nurses, for example, even though they may have a greater need of them. Still, the space is precious, and one more expert means one less VIP. Teachers and children’s nurses will not be provided either, and for some reason I like to think of the élite having to do these jobs themselves. They will also need to learn how to handle sewage, keep the place clean, and so forth. It may be hard on them, but it will keep them busy.

Apart from that, they will have the same services that we enjoy on the military levels. Air and food will be supplied in the same way. So will energy, but not for such a long time: their supply is calculated to last for 200 years only.

MAY 19

Today X-107 and I discussed the advantages which the two military levels have over Level 5. He seems to derive some satisfaction from the fact that, judging by our lower level, we are rated as more important than our country’s élite.

“Of course,” he said, “this doesn’t mean we’d have been above all those politicians and ex-generals and so on if all of us had stayed on the surface. But our military function makes it necessary for us to be given the most privileged position down here. The final victory—which means their welfare as well as ours—depends on us.”

What X-107 had said made me think of the position of the captain on a big liner. Though some of his passengers may be eminent scientists or important statesmen, men of far more consequence, it is the captain who usually has the best-situated cabin. Of course, the importance of Level 7, or even Level 6, relative to Level 5 is far greater than that of a captain to his passengers.

“I imagine,” I said, “that the people of Level 5—who include our policy-makers, after all—would have put themselves on Levels 6 and 7 and us on Level 5 if there had been enough room for them down here. But they must have decided that getting a large number of themselves sheltered on a fairly deep level was better than having too few of them on Levels 6 and 7.”

X-107 thought not. He said that whatever size the various levels had been, we should still have been allocated space on the deepest one because of our job.

Well, for one reason or another, the armed forces now find themselves in the safest place in the world, not in the front lines. Quite a change from the days when a soldier had to advance into a machine-gun volley and a pilot was forever expecting something to blast him out of the sky. Today we, the soldiers of our country, are shielded by an earth crust 3,000 or 4,400 feet thick. No warrior’s armour-plating ever compared with that.

For once let the civilians tremble while the soldiers feel secure.

MAY 20

Levels 4 and 3 are designed on the same principle as Level 5. They have similar equipment and they are to house important people—though not so important as the élite of Level 5. The higher the level, once you get above the military units, the lower the social status of its prospective inhabitants.

Level 4 is sub-divided into ten independent and self-sufficient units, each holding 10,000 people. They are dispersed throughout the country, about 1,000 feet deep, and their food and energy supplies are planned to last about a century.

Level 3 is higher, about 500 feet deep, and has twenty-five units which will contain 20,000 persons each. So it will shelter in all half a million people. It has enough food and energy for about twenty-five years only.