Only You Can Save Mankind

5

If Not You, Who Else?

There was a constant smell of smoke and burnt plastic in the ship now, the Captain noticed. The air condi- tioners couldn't get rid of it any more. Some of the smoke and burned plastic was the air conditioners.

She could feel the eyes of her officers on her. She didn't know how many of them she could count on. She got the feeling that she wasn't very popular.

She looked up into the eyes of the Gunnery Officer. 'You disobeyed my orders,' she repeated. The Gunnery Officer looked around the control- room with an air of injured innocence.

'But we were being attacked,' he said. 'They fired the first shots.'

'I said that we would not fire,' said the Captain, try- ing to ignore the background murmur of agreement. 'I gave my word to the Chosen One. He was about to fire.'

'But he did not,' said the Gunnery Officer. 'He merely watched.'

'He was about to fire.'

'About is too late. The tanker Kreewhea is destroyed. Along with half our campaign provisions, I should add ... Captain,' said the Gunnery Officer.

'Nevertheless, an order was directly disobeyed.'

The Captain pointed out of the window. The fleet

was passing several more ships of the ancient Space

Invader race.

'They fought,' she said. 'Endlessly. And look at them

now. And they were only the first. Remember what

happened to the Vortiroids? And the Meggazzoids?

And the Glaxoticon? Do you want to be like them?'

'Hah. They were primitive. Very low resolution.'

'But there were many of them. And they still died.'

'If we are going to die, I for one would rather die

fighting,' said the Gunnery Officer. This time the mur-

mur was a lot louder.

'You would still be dead,' said the Captain.

She thought: There'll be a mutiny if I shoot him or

imprison him. I can't fine him because none of us

have been paid. I can't confine him to his quarters

because.., she hated to think this.. . we might need

him, at the end.

'You are severely reprimanded,' she said.

The Gunnery Officer smirked.

'It will go on your record,' the Captain added.

'Since we will not escape alive-' the Gunnery

Officer began.

'That is my responsibility,' said the Captain. 'You are

dismissed.'

The Gunnery Officer glared at her.

'When we get home-'

'Oh?' said the Captain. 'Now you think we will get

home?'

By early evening Johnny's temperature was a hundred and two, and he was suffering from what his mother called Sunday night flu. He was lying in the lovely warm glow that comes from knowing that, whatever happens, there'll be no school tomorrow.

The backs of his eyeballs felt itchy. The insides of his elbows felt hot.

It was what came of spending all his time in front of a computer, he'd been told, instead of in the healthy fresh air. He couldn't quite see this, even in his itchy- eyeball state. Surely the fresh air would have been worse? But in his experience being ill always came of whatever you'd been doing. Parents would probably manage to say it came of taking vitamins and wrapping up nice and warm. He'd probably get an appointment down at the health centre next Friday, since they always liked you to be good and ill by the time you came, so that the doctors could be sure of what you'd got.

He could hear the TV downstairs. He spent twenty minutes wondering whether to get out of bed to switch on his old one, but when he moved there were purple blurs in front of his eyes and an ongoing hum in his ears.

He must have managed it, though, because next time he looked it was on, and the colours were much better than usual. There were the newscasters - the black one and the one who looked like his glasses fitted under his skin instead of over the top - and there was the studio, just like normal.

Except that it had the words 'ScreeWee War' in the corner, where there were usually words like 'Budget Shock' or 'Euro Summit'. He couldn't hear what people were saying, but the screen switched to a map of space. It was black. That was the point of space. It was just infinity, huge and black with one dot in it that was everything else.

There was one stubby red arrow in the middle of the blackness. Several dozen blue ones were heading towards it from the edge of the map. In one corner of the map was a photo of a man talking into a phone.

Hang on, thought Johnny. I'm almost certain there wasn't a BBC reporter with the ScreeWees. They'd have said. Probably there isn't even a CNN one.

He still wasn't getting any sound, but he didn't really need any. It was obvious that humans were closing in on the fleet.

The scene changed. Now it showed a tent some- where, and there was the huge man, standing in front of another copy of the map.

This time the sound came up. He was saying:

... that Johnny? He's no fighter. He's no politician. He goes home when the going gets tough. He runs out on his obligations. But apart from that, hey, he's a real nice kid . .

'That's not true!' Johnny shouted.

'It isn't?' said a voice behind him.

He didn't look around immediately. By the sound of it, the voice had come from his chair. And that was much more impossible than the ScreeWee being on television. No-one could sit in that chair. It was full of old T-shirts and books and supper plates and junk. There was a deep sock layer and possibly the Lost Strawberry Yoghurt. No-one could sit down there without special equipment.

The Captain was, though. She seemed quite at home. He'd only ever seen her face on the screen. Now he could see that she was about two metres long, but quite thin - more like a fat snake with legs than an alligator or a newt. She had two thick, heavy pairs about half- way down, and two pairs of thinner ones at the top, on a set of very complicated shoulders. Most of her was covered in a brown overall; the bits that stuck out - her head, all eight hands or feet, and most of her tail - were yellow-bronze, and covered in very small scales. 'If you parked out in the road Mrs Cannock opposite will be really mad,' Johnny heard himself say. 'She goes mad about my dad leaving his car parked out in the road and it's not even a thousand metres long. So this is an hallucination, isn't it?' 'Of course it is,' said the Captain. 'I'm not sure that real space and game space are connected, except in your head.' 'I saw this film once where spaceships could go any- where in the universe through wormholes in space,' said Johnny. 'That means I've got a wormhole in my head?' The Captain shrugged, which was a very interesting sight in a being with four arms. 'Watch this,' she said. 'This is very impressive. I expect this will be shown a lot.' She pointed at the screen. It showed stars, and a dot in the distance. It got big- er very quickly. 'I think I know that,' said Johnny. 'It's one of your ships. The sort you get on level seven, isn't it?' 'The type, I think, will not matter for long,' said the Captain quietly. The ship was heading away from the camera. Its rocket exhausts got larger and larger. 'The camera seemed to be mounted on a 'Missile?' said Johnny weakly. The screen went blank. Johnny thought of the dead Space Invader armada, turning over and over in the frosty emptiness between the game stars. 'I don't want to know about it,' said Johnny. 'I don't want you to tell me how many ScreeWee there were on board. I don't want you to tell me what happ-'

'No,' said the Captain, 'I expect you don't.'

'It's not my fault! I can't help what people are like!'

'Of course not.'

The Captain had a nasty way of talking in a reason- able voice.

'We are under attack,' she said. 'Humans are attack- ing us. Even though we have surrendered.'

'Yes, but you only surrendered to me,' said Johnny. 'I'm just me. It's not like surrendering to a government or something. I'm not important.'

'On the contrary,' said the ScreeWee, 'you're the saviour of civilization. You're all that stands between your world and certain oblivion. You are the last hope.'

'But that's not . . real. That's just what it says at the start of the game!'

'And you did not believe it?'

'Look, it always says something like that!'

'Only you can save mankind?' said the Captain.

'Yes, but it's not really true!'

'If not you, then who else?'

'Look,' said Johnny. 'I have saved mankind. In the game, anyway. There aren't any ScreeWee attack- ing any more. People have to play it for hours to find any.

The Captain smiled. The shrug had been impressive. But the Captain's mouth was half a metre long.

'You humans are strange,' she said. 'You are warlike. But you make rules! Rules of war!'

'Sometimes I think we don't always obey all those rules,' said Johnny.

Another four-armed shrug.

'Does that matter? Even to have made such rules You think all of life is a game.'

The Captain pulled a small piece of silvery paper out of a pocket of her overall.

'Your attackers have left us too short of food. So, by your rules,' she said, 'I must ask for the following: fifteen tonnes of pressed wheat extractions treated with sucrose; ten thousand litres of cold bovine lactation; twenty-five tonnes of the baked wheat extraction containing grilled bovine flesh and trace ingredients, along with chopped and fried tubers and fried and corn-extract-coated rings of vegetables of the allium family; one tonne of crushed mustard seeds mixed with water and permitted addi- tives; three tonnes of exploded corn kernels coated with lactic derivation; ten thousand litres of coloured water containing sucrose and trace elements; fifteen tonnes of prepared and fermented wheat extract in vegetable juice; one thousand tonnes of soured lactic acid flavoured with fruit extract. Daily. Thank you.'

'What?'

'The food of your fighting men,' explained the Captain.

'Doesn't sound like food.'

'You are right,' said the Captain. 'It is disgustingly lacking in fresh vegetables and dangerously high in carbohydrates and saturated fats. However, it appears that this is what you eat.'

'Me? I don't even know what that stuff is! What are pressed wheat extractions treated with sucrose?'

'It said "Snappiflakes" on the packet,' said the Captain.

'Soured lactic acid?'

'You had a banana yoghurt.'

Johnny's lips moved as he tried to work this out.

'The grilled bovine flesh and all that stuff?'

'A hamburger and fries with fried onion rings.'

Johnny tried to sit up.

'Are you saying that I've got to go down to the shops and get takeaway Jumboburgers for an entire alien spacefleet?'

'Not exactly.'

'I should think not-'

'My Chief Engineer wants a Bucket of Chicken Lumps.'

'What do ScreeWee usually eat?'

'Normally we eat a kind of waterweed. It contains a perfect balance of vitamins, minerals and trace elements to ensure a healthy growth of scale and crest.'

'Then why-'

'But, as you would put it, it tastes like poo.'

'Oh.'

The Captain stood up. It was a beautiful movement. The ScreeWee body had no angles in it, apart from the elbows and knees; she seemed to be able to bend wher- ever she wanted.

'And now I must return,' she said. 'I hope your attack of minor germs will shortly be over. I could only wish that my attack of human beings was as easily cured.'

'Why aren't you fighting back?' said Johnny. 'I know you can.

'No. You are wrong. We have surrendered.'

'Yes, but-'

'We will not fire on human ships. Sooner or later, it has to stop. We will run instead. Someone gave us safe conduct.'

The worst bit was that she didn't raise her voice, or accuse him of anything, she just made statements. Big, horrible statements.

'All right,' said Johnny, in a dull voice, 'but I know it's not real. I've got the flu. You get mild hallucina- tions when you get the flu. Everyone knows that. I remember I was ill once and all the floppy bunnies on the wallpaper started dancing about. This is like that. You can't really know about this stuff. You're just in my head.'

'What difference does that make?' said the Captain. She stepped out through the wall, and then poked her head back into the room.

'Remember,' she said, 'only you can save mankind.'

'And I said I already-'

'ScreeWee is only the human name for us,' said the Captain. 'Have you ever wondered what the ScreeWee word for ScreeWee is?'

He must have slept, but he didn't dream. He woke up in the middle of the afternoon.

A huge ball of incandescent nuclear fire, heated to millions of degrees, was shining brightly in the sky.

The house was empty. His mother had left him a breakfast tray, which was to say that she'd put together a new Snappiflakes packet, a spoon, a bowl and a note saying 'Milk in Fridge'. She'd also put her office phone number on the bottom of the note. He knew what it was anyway, but sometimes she used the phone number like other people would use an Elastoplast.

He opened the packet and fished around inside. The alien was in a hygienic little paper bag. It was yellow, and in fact did look a bit like the Captain, if you almost shut your eyes.

He wandered aimlessly through the rooms. There die of the day. It was all women talking to one another on sofas. He sneaked a look out into the road, just in case there were half-mile-long rocket-exhaust burns. And then he went back upstairs and sat and stared at the silent computer.

OK.

So ... you switch on. And there's the game.

Somehow it felt worse thinking about playing it by just

sitting in front of it now.

On the other hand, it was daytime, so most people would be at school or at least keeping a low profile somewhere. Johnny wasn't quite certain about game time and real time, but maybe the attacks stopped when people had to go to school? But no, there were prob- ably people playing it in America or Australia or somewhere.

Besides, when you died in your sleep you woke up, so what happens now if you die while you're awake?

But the ScreeWee were getting slaughtered out there. Or in there. Or in here.

The Captain was stupid not to fire back.

His hand switched on the computer without his mind really being aware of it.

The game logo appeared. The music started up. The same old message scrolled up the screen. He knew it by heart. Savior of Civilization. Certain Oblivion.

Only You Can Save Mankind. If Not You, Who Else?

He blinked. The message had scrolled off the top of the screen. He couldn't have imagined that extra last line ... could he?

And then the same old stars.

He didn't touch the keyboard or the joystick. He wasn't certain what direction he should be going in. On the whole, straight on seemed best. For hours.

He glanced at the clock. It was just gone four o'clock. People would be home from school now. They'd be watching Cobbers and She'll Be Apples and Moonee Ponds. Bigmac would be watching with his mouth open at his brother's. Wobbler would be watch- ing while trying to rob some other poor computer games writer of his just rewards. Yo-less probably wouldn't be paying much attention, exactly; it'd just be on while he did his homework. Yo-less always did his homework when he got home from school and didn't pay attention to anything else until it had been finished to his satisfaction. But everyone watched Cobbers.

Except Johnny, today.

He felt vaguely proud of that. The television was off. He had other things to do.

Somewhere in the last ten minutes he'd made a deci- sion. He wasn't sure exactly what it was, but he'd made it. So he had to see it through. Whatever it was.

He went to the bathroom and had a go with the ther- mometer. It was an electronic one that his mother had bought from a catalogue, and it also told the time. Everything in the catalogue had a digital clock built in. Even the golf umbrella that doubled as a Handy Picnic Table. Even the thing for getting fluff out of socks.

'Away with Not Being Able to Know What the Time is All the Time Blues,' said Johnny vaguely, and stuck the thermometer in his mouth for the required twenty seconds.

His temperature was 16:04°.

No wonder he felt cold.

He went back to bed with the thermometer still in his mouth and looked at the screen again. Still just stars.

The rest of them would probably be down at the mall now, unless Yo-less was trying for an A+ with his homework. Hanging out. Waiting for another day to end.

He squinted at the thermometer. It read 16:O7°.

Still nothing but stars on the screen ...