Level 7

X-107 was rather uneasy about it, but I told him I did not mind at all, and this seemed to reassure him.

The formalities were arranged for this afternoon without any difficulty. P and I were divorced in the marriage-cum-laundry room, where five minutes later she was married to X-107. I was told to leave the ‘m’ from my identity badge in the room. X-107 probably got it.

I think this development was inevitable and for the best. Perhaps a man of so-called ‘saintly’ disposition should not be married.

The general loudspeaker announced today that the PBX Operations Room was to be transformed into a maternity ward. Several births are expected, but not before January or February next year, so there is plenty of time and no real need to announce the conversion of the room so early.

Perhaps the news was given now with the intention of cheering people up. They even tried to suggest that the transformation is symbolical: from operations room, the centre of push-button war, into maternity ward, the place where new life starts.

“And you shall beat your push-buttons into perambulators,” occurred to me.

Rather late in the day, though!

I rarely go to the lounge now. There is nobody I want to talk to. People I meet there, my fellow-internees on Level 7, think differently, feel differently. I might have found a good companion in X-117. But he is gone. Not by blast or fire or radioactivity. By his own hand and a leather belt.

But I commune with myself. I almost converse with the artist and his wife who chose to die their radioactive death.

There are people living all round me, but I do not live with them. For me the dead are alive. The living are dead.

SEPTEMBER 15

Alarming news from Level 3. There are symptoms of radioactive sickness there.

The first signs appeared yesterday, the broadcast said; but they decided to say nothing about it until they were sure what was wrong. By now the symptoms are so widespread that no doubt remains. Somehow radioactivity has reached Level 3.

There are several theories as to how it happened. The most plausible one is that the water supply has been polluted. Water for Level 3 and below comes from ground sources and is naturally filtered by the earth layers through which it passes. But perhaps the filtering is not thorough enough. Who knows? The system was never tested under the extreme conditions which have existed since A-Day.

There were so many underground explosions. In numerous places the earth must have been polluted down to a considerable depth. In such spots, perhaps, the rain water has been contaminated rather than filtered on its way to the ground water sources.

Well, I really do not know how this calamity has come about, but it has happened all right. Eighteen shelters on Level 3 are affected by radioactivity. They are probably doomed.

Some people I spoke to today were seriously worried. For Level 3 is self-sufficient, a part of the new underground world. If they are being poisoned, say the pessimists, anyone can be poisoned.

The optimists retort that the differences in depth are significant and decisive. Otherwise Levels 4, 5, 6 and 7 would never have been built. The deeper the level, the safer. Level 7’s water supply passes through many more natural filters than Level 3’s.

SEPTEMBER 16

The optimists have been over-confident. Reports of sickness have come in from six shelters on Level 4 and two on Level 5. Four more shelters on Level 3 are affected.

All three levels have been ordered to distill all their drinking water. It is not enough to boil it: they must distill it. I do not know how they will set about doing that, for they have no special equipment for the job. But they will have to manage somehow—or else go on drinking poisoned water.

The military levels, 6 and 7, are all right. Our water supply comes from a really great depth.

SEPTEMBER 17

The news from Levels 3, 4 and 5 is terrible. Everybody is going down with severe symptoms. Yesterday some of the shelters on these levels were still all right. Today there is not one unpoisoned shelter, and reports of deaths have already started to come in.

They are distilling their water, but it looks as if the damage has already been done. The precautions may have been taken in time to save some, perhaps. We shall know in a week or two. Perhaps sooner. It does not take long to find out.

Not so long ago this news would not have affected me at all. Now I feel sorry for those people up there. It must be horrible for them, knowing their probable fate and not being able to do a thing about it. Those who are still able to get about can busy themselves with hopefully distilling the water. Apart from that, all they can do is wait and see.

If Levels 3, 4 and 5 perish, only the military levels will be left. The ex-PBX and ex-PBY Commands. But now our job will be not to destroy but to create: to ensure the survival of mankind.