Level 7

by Mordecai Roshwald

  “Friends, citizens on all surviving Levels! Especially you comrades-in-arms on Levels 6 and 7. I have just hanged the arch-war-criminals, the so-called political leaders of our country. They were leaders, indeed: they led us to complete destruction.

  “The trouble with them, friends, was that they did not trust us old, experienced and—I may add without false modesty—brave soldiers. In my day I led our country to victory on many occasions, with good fighting men to command and good weapons to give them. In we went, destroying, killing, conquering. Some of us were wounded; some of us were killed; but the others survived to reap with their country the fruits of victory. Even the politicians got some glory for themselves out of it.

  “But they did not trust those well-tried methods. Good guns and tanks, and good men too—those were not enough for them. They wanted rockets, robots, electronics and all those other outlandish devices.

  “Now we, my friends, we are paying for it. But I hope it will comfort you to know that they did not get away with it. They were not allowed to die their fine electronic—or whatever the damned thing is called—their fine electronic death. They were hanged, with a rope, in the good old-fashioned way. I did it. And I may say I enjoyed doing it.

  “Long live our Army. Long live our country. Long live…”

  That is as far as he got, for he started vomiting violently.

  SEPTEMBER 19

  The news from Level 5 is confused and confusing. They seem to be playing politics right to the end. No wonder, I suppose, with so many politicians there, along with the top level of the élite—the cream of the cream.

  But no more speeches from the retired general. He does not feel well enough. His place as ‘head of the government’ (whatever that may mean now) has been taken by a retired Air Force commander.

  He made a speech this morning, one very much like the general’s. He spoke warmly of wars fought by pilots in conventional aircraft. “As long as there were pilots flying the planes,” he said, “it made no essential difference whether the planes were screw-propelled or jets, whether they flew at 200 m.p.h. or at supersonic speeds. But the moment those guided missiles appeared—especially those devilish ground-to-ground intercontinental rockets—civilisation was doomed. No more glory for men, no more brave combats in the air, no more bombing of cities and installations by men who knew what they were about. But dehumanised war, automatic war, and its inevitable result: the end of civilisation.”

  This speaker was as eloquent as his predecessor, but he had to stop even before he arrived at ‘Long live the Air Force’—stopped by an attack of nausea, we were told.

  Oddly enough, until now I have never devoted much thought to the problem of war. Though war was my business, and though I underwent many tests and extensive training, or what appeared to be training, before I qualified as a pushbutton officer, I never thought beyond those buttons.

  Was it the same with the soldier who drove a tank or pulled the trigger of a rifle? And what about the men who swung swords against an enemy they could actually grapple with?

  I do not think I could be a swordsman. I could not kill with a club or a bayonet or a knife, let alone with my bare hands. But pushing a button—that was a different matter.

  It has become so easy to destroy and kill. With a pushbutton a child, an innocent baby, could do it. In a sense, I suppose, the idea that the present disaster happened because war became dehumanised may have something in it.

  But not more than something. For if it is wicked to destroy the world and wipe out the whole of humanity, thousands of millions, why is it good to kill ten million people and destroy just some parts of the world, as those old-style soldiers and airmen did?

  Or is it good to kill with bows and arrows, because it is evil to kill with atomic bombs?

  Surely not. Either it is good to kill, and then to kill off humanity is good; or it is evil to kill, in which case killing with any weapons is wrong.

  It might well be that as the technology of war progressed a different type of person did the killing. The head-hunter might have made a bad button-pusher, and the button-pusher a poor infantryman. But killing is killing, whatever way it is done. Once you allow the death of one person, the way is open for the massacre of a million.

  And yet, and yet—the development of the atomic rocket did make a difference. A merely technical difference, perhaps, but with results… results which go far beyond technology.

  There is a difference between limited destruction and total annihilation.

  SEPTEMBER 20

  They seem to be doomed—all of them. All three levels, 3, 4 and 5.

  In some shelters the sickness has entered its final stages, in others it is not so far advanced. But according to our medical experts it is only a matter of time: the severity and universality of the symptoms make it quite clear that the civilian levels do not have long to live.

  And they know it. But they cannot do anything about it. They wait for their caves to turn into mass graves.

  All this has happened so quickly. It is strange that the water supplies of all the different shelters became poisoned at roughly the same time. Within the short space of three days the sickness had spread throughout the three levels.

  How this happened is hard to explain. Perhaps all the shelters were built in geologically similar areas, in places where the ground was fairly soft. To dig deep shelters through rock would have been very difficult. It could have been done given plenty of time, but time was short. And perhaps it was not polluted rain water that penetrated and poisoned the water supplies of the shelters, but some capillary water in the ground.

  Be that as it may, it happened. It happened quickly and on all three civilian levels.

  Levels 6 and 7 seem to be safe. The experts say so. The shelters are deep enough for the filtering process to do its work. Even so, their water supplies are regularly checked for possible radioactivity. If this had been done on the higher levels, they might have been able to take precautions in time, though the job of distilling enough water for everybody without the proper equipment, would have been almost impossible. People would probably have died from thirst. One of the broadcasts received today said that on Level 4 some people had given up hope of getting enough clean water and were quenching their thirst with the freely flowing supply of poison.

  I dare say they have given up trying to purify the water now. It is too late to do any good. And probably there is nobody left to work their makeshift distilleries.

  SEPTEMBER 21

  Broadcasts from the civilian levels are few and far between. They do not care whether we are fully informed or not. Or else it is hard to find anyone to operate the transmitter. Whatever the reason, they are mostly silent.

  It is curious how this radioactive death silences people even before the life actually leaves their bodies. Though perhaps death usually works that way.

  But what is the difference? They are fated to die. Some went yesterday, some are going today. More will go tomorrow and the day after. Supposing some survive for another week or two? That will not be life. Just an extended agony.

  So the world is shrinking once again. Our part of it used to have about 622,500 inhabitants. Soon the number will be down to 2,500.

  Death works fast. In a second it can kill a man, a thousand men, a million men. A thousand millions it can kill in one second. The pushing of a button can do it.

  Perhaps I exaggerate: in the deep caves, radioactive death comes more slowly. But it comes just as surely.

  SEPTEMBER 22

  This morning we picked up a radio message from the enemy suggesting that we should conclude a peace treaty. It also informed us that the entire civilian population over there, including the government and its various officials, is gone. They were all killed at one time or another by blast, fire or, finally radiation. All that is left is the military level—about a thousand people, self-sufficient for centuries.

  As a reason for making peace they pointed out that there was no longer any
thing to dispute: no territory, no strategic positions, no wealth, no markets, no uncommitted areas—nothing. “And,” they added, “peaceful relations may add some fun to life underground, which is not very interesting.”

  So the enemy’s lot is similar to ours. We have not been told exactly what their system of shelters was, but they are all graves except for the military one, which must correspond to our Level 7. Our enemy has shrunk even more than we!

  And now we should make peace for the fun of it. As good a reason as any, though it is the queerest political motive I have ever struck!

  After lunch today we were told that our radio staff were trying to get in touch with Level 5. They were asking for instructions.

  On Level 7 there is no recognised authority to decide matters of such moment as peace treaties. We waged the war at the command of a gadget, except for the two orders which had to be given locally for purely military reasons. We could have been told what to do by the political leaders on Level 5—who may still be able to give us orders. Not the same leaders, of course, but the men who hanged them.

  Level 7’s internal affairs are managed on Level 7, naturally. Our own administrative officers deal with such things as timetables for the use of the lounge, marriage arrangements and so forth. But they cannot take any political responsibility.

  So we are trying to get instructions from Level 5. They may have heard the enemy’s radio message themselves, of course, though it was addressed to “Our comrades in pushbutton war on the other side of the globe.” That is why we have taken the initiative in the matter of the peace treaty—in case Level 5 does not take it.

  SEPTEMBER 23

  No, Level 5 does nothing about it. They have not replied at all. Perhaps they cannot. There are no authorities left, maybe, or nobody to receive radio messages.

  Somebody on Level 6 or 7 will have to make the decision. But who?

  The general loudspeaker system has just announced that Level 7’s three chief administrators have decided to hold a referendum. The peace treaty question is to be decided by a majority vote. A truly democratic answer.

  Voters are instructed to press a red button, identify themselves and say whether or not they want peace. Level 6 will be asked to participate, of course, their votes being added to the democratic pool.

  I am in favour of peace, and I intend to record my vote as soon as I have finished writing this entry. I am sure most people will feel the same way. Down here on Level 7, at least. I do not know how Level 6 will react. Up there they are defensive button-pushers, and I have no idea what kind of character was looked for when they were selected. They may be very different from ourselves, which makes their views on peace hard to guess. We shall just have to wait and see what they say.

  SEPTEMBER 24

  Level 6 is silent. Last night, and again this morning, our people broadcast the voting arrangements and asked Level 6 for their comments. But they did not even acknowledge the receipt of our message.

  This is most curious, for physically they are the nearest to us of all the shelters. Our transmitter has been checked and found to be functioning properly. Presumably something has gone wrong with theirs.

  In the meantime we have informed the enemy that consultations are going on concerning their peace proposals.

  SEPTEMBER 25

  Level 6 is still silent. Like the grave.

  There must be something seriously wrong there. It cannot be just a matter of the transmitter. PBY Command, with its team of specialists trained to operate, check and repair the most complicated electronic gadgets, would be the last to be silenced by the breakdown of a radio transmitter.

  More and more people down here are saying that Level 6 has perished. Probably so suddenly that they did not even have time to broadcast the news.

  But what could have happened there? Perhaps their atomic reactor exploded—if this is possible. Perhaps the plants suddenly died and left people with no air to breathe. Perhaps….

  Who can know what really happened? No one has lived long enough in the caves to know all the things that can go wrong. It is impossible to anticipate everything. Though we knew how aircraft worked, there were still crashes. Railways had been operated even longer, but that did not prevent the occasional accident.

  So why should we be surprised if a shelter perishes, even one which looks completely safe? Look at what sometimes happened to submarines. And what are our levels but subterraneans?

  Why should we consider ourselves so completely safe? Just because the surface is so fatally dangerous?

  SEPTEMBER 26

  We have just about given up trying to get an answer out of Level 6. It is generally assumed that they are dead, though even the scare-mongers of yesterday are too awed by what this means to talk about it openly any more. But you can read people’s thoughts in their faces. This seems to touch our level more closely than anything which has happened before. If it is possible for a shelter, a deep shelter with its own energy and air supplies, to go out like a light, for no apparent reason—then anything can happen.

  So people here are losing their sense of security. Some are looking distinctly nervous. Even X-107m, who has developed a tic at the left-hand corner of his mouth.

  Until now the feeling has been: “We are safe. We are deep in the earth. We are the most privileged, and the chosen few who have survived and will go on living.”

  The feeling creeping in now is: “Shall we survive? Are we not just the last to die, waiting longer than the others for our turn to come? How soon shall we perish? How shall we perish? From plant decay and lack of oxygen? From some trouble we cannot even diagnose? Shall we know that we are dying, or will the blow be sudden and catch us unawares?’”

  SEPTEMBER 27

  We have concluded a peace treaty with the enemy. The voting was almost unanimously in favour of it. Why not? We may as well enjoy some live company before we join the other levels.

  I wrote that paragraph this morning. Since then I have been thinking what a strange peace this is which we have made. A peace of death.

  We are at peace not because the world is united, physically or in spirit, but because the warring camps are separated by an insurmountable barrier of death.

  We, our former enemy and ourselves, wanted to be masters of mankind. Each of us wanted to rule the whole world, or to save it (both formulas amount to the same thing now). And the result: both sides have been diminished to a few hundred cave-dwellers.

  Never in all human history was there anything so grotesque. Two vast countries, the two greatest world powers, reduced in a matter of hours to the status of a few moles, hiding below ground in the constant fear that the next hour will be their last.

  SEPTEMBER 28

  There is some mutual entertainment on the air. We and our ex-enemy are exchanging slogans which express ideals supposedly justifying the war. The entertainment value lies in the fact that we both look on the funny side of it. The ironical exchanges carry on in this fashion:

  “Cave-men of the world, unite!”

  “Freedom and democracy for all cave-men!”

  “True people’s democracy for all cave-men!”

  “Let’s make the world safe for the cave-men!”

  “Equality for cave-men!”

  “Freedom of speech for cave-men!”

  “A classless society of cave-men!”

  “A real democracy of cave-men!”

  And so on. The more high-sounding the slogan, the hollower it rings—and the more people laugh at it. Our ex-enemy seems to enjoy the game as much as we do. We have been invited by the general loudspeaker to send in slogans of our own to be broadcast. I have submitted mine: “At last the world is united.”

  SEPTEMBER 29

  My slogan went out this morning.

  Their reply was rather slow in coming, and when it arrived I was not at all sure whether they intended it to be funny: “But it lives in separate shelters.”

  I was asked whether I wanted to answer this one, and after thinkin
g about it for a while I submitted my answer: “But it dies the one death.”

  This time their reply came back in a flash: “Divided we live, united we die!”

  SEPTEMBER 30

  I spent this afternoon writing a short story for a possible broadcast. Here it is.

  Once upon a time there were two friends called A and B. They had known each other for years and used to spend a great deal of time together. Even when A had found himself a girl friend, and B had found himself a girl friend, the two of them still enjoyed each other’s company so much that they used to go out with their girl friends together. But they were not at all alike to look at. A wore his hair smooth and sleekly shining, and his girl said she liked it that way; while B’s hair stuck up like the spines of a porcupine, which was the style his girl favoured.

  Each of them preferred his own haircut and did not approve of the style which seemed to please the other one’s girl friend, but for a long time both were reluctant to say so. Then one day A said to B, in the friendliest way: “Look here, my friend, I do think it would be so much better if you cut your hair my way.” And B replied: “Since you mention it, I’ve often thought your hair would look much better cut like mine.”

  To begin with they discussed the relative merits and demerits of the two styles most amicably. But when each saw that the other had no intention of changing his mind, the argument began to grow heated.