Only You Can Save Mankind

6

Chicken Lumps In Space

He woke up. The familiar smell of the starship tickled his nose. He cast his eyes over the control panel. He was getting a bit more familiar with it now. Right. So he was back in real life again. When he got back to... when he got back to. . He'd have to have a word with the medics about this odd recurring dream that he was a boy in- No! he thought. I'm me! Not a pilot in a computer game! If I start thinking like that then I'll really die! Got to take charge!

Then he noticed the other ships on the screen. He was still along way from the fleet, of course. But there were three other ships spread out neatly behind him, in convoy. They were bigger and fatter than his and, insofar as it was possible to do this in space, they seemed to wallow rather than fly.

He hit the Communications button. A plump face appeared on the screen. 'Wobbler?' Johnny?'

'What are you doing in my head?'

The on-screen Wobbler looked around.

'Well, according to this little panel riveted on the control thingy, I'm flying a Class Three Light head?'

'I'm not sure,' said Johnny. By the main communica- tion screen was another switch saying 'Conference Facility'. He had a feeling he knew what it did.

Sure enough, when he pressed it Wobbler's face drifted to the top left-hand corner of the screen. Yo-less's face appeared in the opposite corner, with Johnny's own head above it. The other corner stayed blank.

Johnny tapped a button.

'Bigmac?' he said. 'Yo-less?'

Bigmac's face appeared in the blank. He appeared to be wiping his mouth.

'Checking the cargo?' said Johnny sarcastically.

'It's full of hamburgers!' said Bigmac, in a voice like a good monk who's just arrived in heaven and found that all the sins of the flesh are allowed. 'Boxes and boxes of hamburgers! I mean millions! With fries. And one Bucket of Chicken Lumps, it says here.'

'It says on this clipboard,' said Yo-less, 'that I'm fly- ing a lot of Prepared Corn and Wheat Products. Shall I go and see what they are?'

'OK,' said Johnny. 'Then that means you're driving the milk tanker, Wobbler.'

'Oh, yes. That's right. Bigmac gets burgers, Wobbler gets boring milk,' moaned Wobbler.

Yo-less's face reappeared.

'Back there it's breakfast cereals, mainly,' he said. 'In Giant-Jumbo-Mega-Civilization-Sized boxes.'

'Then Bigmac'd better bring his ship between you and Wobbler,' said Johnny briskly. 'We can't risk a collision.

'Snap, crackle. fababababBOOM!' said Bigmac and Wobbler.

'How can we?' said Yo-less. 'We're not dreaming.'

'OK. OK. Um. So will we remember this when he wakes up?'

'I don't think so. I think we're only here as projec- tions from his own subconscious mind,' said Yo-less. 'He's just dreaming us.'

'You mean we're not real?' said Bigmac.

'I'm not sure if I'm real,' said Johnny.

'It feels real,' said Wobbler. 'Smells real, too.'

'Tastes real,' said Bigmac.

'Looks real,' said Yo-less. 'But he's only imagining we're here. It's not really us. Just the us that's inside his head.'

Don't ask me, thought Johnny. You were always best at this stuff.

'And I've just worked out, right,' said Yo-less, 'that if we send in the boxtops from every single packet back there we can get six thousand sets of saucepans, OK? And twenty thousand books of football stickers and fifty-seven thousand chances to win a Stylish Five-Door Ford Sierra.'

The four ships lumbered on towards the distant fleet. Johnny's starship could easily outdistance the tankers, so he flew in wide circles around them, watching the radar screen.

There was an occasional zip and sizzle from Wob- bler's tanker. He was trying to take its computer apart, just in case there were any design innovations Johnny might remember when he woke up.

Ships appeared on the screen. There was the big dot of the fleet and, around the edges of the screen,

A thought occurred to him.

'Yo-less?'

'Yeah?'

'Have those things got any guns on?'

'Er ... what do they look like?'

'There's probably a red button on the joystick.'

'Not got one on mine.'

'What about you, Wobbler? Bigmac?'

'Nope.'

'Which one's the joystick?' said Bigmac.

'It's the thing you're steering with.'

'Yeah, wipe the mustard off and have a look,' said Yo-less.

'Nothing on it,' said Bigmac.

Unarmed, thought Johnny. And slow. One hit with a missile and Wobbler is sitting inside the biggest cheese in the universe. What happens to people in my dream?

'Why does it always go wrong?

'I'll just go on ahead,' he said, and pressed the Fast button.

There were three players attacking the ScreeWee fleet. It soon became two; Johnny had one in his sights all the way in, curving away through the smoke-ring of the explosion and heading for the next attacker so fast that he was only just behind his own missile.

It was going after the Captain's ship, and the player wasn't paying attention to his radar. Another explo- sion, already behind Johnny as he looked for the third player.

Johnny realized he wasn't thinking about it. His eyes and hands were doing all the work. He was just watch- ing from inside.

The third player had spotted the tankers. It saw him, turned and actually managed to get some shots away.

Oh, no. Johnny's mind whirred like a machine, judg- ing speed and distance

He felt the ship buck under him, but he held it steady until the crosshairs merged.

Then he pressed his thumb down until a beeping sound told him he hadn't got anything more to fire.

After a while the red mist cleared. He found thoughts slinking back into his mind again. They moved slowly, uncertain of where they were, like people drifting back into a bombed city, picking through rubble, trying to find the old familiar shapes.

There was a metallic taste in his mouth. His elbow ached - he must have banged it on something during the turn.

He thought: No wonder we make rules. The Cap- tain thinks it's strange, but we don't. We know what we'd be like if we didn't have rules.

A light flashed by the communication screen. Some- one wanted to talk to him. He flicked a switch.

The face of the Captain appeared.

'Halt, Johnny. What an efficient technique.'

'Yes. But I had to-'

'Of course. And I see you have brought some friends.'

'You said you needed food.'

'Even more so now. That last attack was severe.

'Aren't you firing at all?'

'No. We have surrendered, I remind you. Besides, we must not stop. Some of us at least will reach the Border.'

'Border?' said Johnny. 'I thought you were going to a planet.' 'We must cross the Border first. Beyond the Border we are safe. Even you cannot follow us. If we fight, all of us die. If we run, some of us live.'

'I don't think humans can think like that,' said Johnny. He glanced out of the cockpit. The tankers were getting nearer.

'You are mammals. Fast. Hot-blooded. We are amphi- bians. Cold-blooded. Slow. Logical. Some of us will get across. We breed fast. To us, it makes sense. To me, it makes sense.

The Captain's image moved to a corner of the screen. Wobbler, Bigmac and Yo-less appeared in the other three quarters.

'That was brilliant shooting,' said Bigmac. 'When I'm in the army- 'There's a frog on my screen,' said Wobbler.

'It's - . - she's the Captain,' said Johnny.

'A woman in charge?' said Yo-less. 'No wonder the aliens always lose,' said Wobbler. 'You should see the side of my mum's car.

'Um. She can hear you, I think. Don't use sexist language,' said Johnny.

The Captain smiled.

'I invite your comrades to unload their welcome cargoes,' she said.

They found out how to do it, eventually. The whole of the middle of the tankers came away as one unit. Small ScreeWee ships, not much more than a seat and a pilot's bubble and a motor, nudged them into the holds of the biggest ships. Without them, the tankers were just a cockpit and engine and a big empty network of girders.

Johnny watched the tank from Yo-less's ship drift gently through the hatch of the Captain's ship.

You get them out of the packet,' he said, 'and you sort of find something plastic falls into your bowl ... well, it's just a joke. It's not on purpose.

'Thank you.'

'If you save all the box tops you could probably win a Ford Sierra,' said Yo-less. There was a slight tremble in his voice as he tried to sound like someone who talked to aliens every day. 'You could get your photo in Competitor's Journal,' he added.

'That would be very useful. Some of the corridors in this ship are very long.'

'Don't be daft,' said Bigmac. 'He'd - she'd never get the spares.'

'Really? In that case we shall have to go for the six thou- sand set of saucepans,' said the Captain.

'How do we get back?' said Wobbler.

'How did you get here?'

Wobbler frowned.

'How did we get here?' he said. 'One minute I was ... was ... and then here I was. Here we were.

'Come to that, where did all the milk and burgers come from?' said Bigmac.

'It's all right,' said Yo-less. 'I told you. We're not really here anyway. We're just anxiety projections. I read about it in a book.'

'That's a relief, then,' said Wobbler. 'That's worth knowing when you're a billion miles out in space. Anyway ... so how do we get back?'

'I don't know,' said Johnny. 'I generally do it by dying.'

'Is there some other way?' said Yo-less, after a long, thoughtful pause. 'You don't have to die to get out,' said Johnny. 'I think you can probably just fly back. I'm not definitely sure any harm can come to you. You're not playing... in your heads, I mean.' 'Well-' Wobbler began.

'But I should go soon, if I was you,' said Johnny. 'Before some more players arrive.'

'We'd stay and help,' said Wobbler, 'but there's no guns on these things, you see.

He sounded worried.

'Yeah. Silly of me not to have dreamed of any,' said Johnny, kindly.

'Yo-less might be right and we're just stuff in your head,' said Wobbler. 'But even people in dreams don't want to die, I expect.'

'Right.'

'You going to be in school tomorrow?'

'Might be.'

'Right. Well, then ... chow.'

'See you.

'You hang in there, right, Johnny?' said Yo-less anxiously.

'I'll try to.'

'Yeah, give them aliens hell, my man!' said Bigmac, as the tankers turned.

Johnny could hear them still talking as the three ships accelerated away.

'That was a foe-par, Bigmac. Johnny's on the aliens' side!' 'What? You mean they're on our side?' 'No, they're on their side. And so is he.' 'Whose side are we on, then?' 'We're on his side.' 'Oh. Right. Er. Yo-less?' 'What?' 'So who's on our side?' 'Eh? He is, I suppose.' 'So is there anyone on the other side?'

The ships became dots on the radar, and then vanished off the edge of the screen.

Where to, Johnny had no idea.

I may have wished them here, or dreamed them, or something. But I mustn't do it again. Maybe they're not really here, but I don't want to see my friends die. I don't want to see anybody die.

At least I'm on my side.

He scanned the sky. After a while the Captain said: 'You are not leaving?'

'Not yet.' 'Until you die, you mean.'

Johnny shrugged.

'It's the only way out,' he said. 'Fight until you die. That's how all games go. You just hope you can get a bit further each time.'

There were still no more attackers on the screen. The fleet looked as if it wasn't moving, but it had built up quite a speed. Every second was taking it further from game space. Every second meant that fewer and fewer players would have the patience or determination to go on looking for it.

He helped himself to some of the horrible nourishing soup from its spigot.

Johnny?'

'Yes?'

'I believe I upset you some time ago by suggesting that humans are bloodthirsty and dangerous'

'Well. Yes. A bit.'

'In that case ... I would like to say ... I am grateful.'

'I don't understand.'

'That you are on our side.' 'Yes, but I'm not bloodthirsty.'

'Then I think perhaps a little while ago someone else must have been flying your ship?'

'No. It's hard to explain it to you,' said Johnny. First of all, he'd have to be able to explain it to himself. 'Shall I embark upon a less troubling topic of conversation?

'You don't have to,' said Johnny. 'I mean, you're in charge. You must have things to do.'

'Oh, spaceships fly themselves,' said the Captain. 'They keep going until they hit things. There is little to do. Tend the wounded and so on. I seldom have a chance to talk to humans. So ... What is sexist?' 'What?'

'It was a word you used.'

'Oh, that. It just means you should treat people as

people and, you know ... not just assume girls can't

do stuff. We got a talk about it at school. There's lots

of stuff most girls can't do, but you've got to pretend

they can, so that more of them will. That's all of it,

really.' 'Presumably there's, uh, stuff boys can't do?'

'Oh. yeah. But that's just girls' stuff,' said Johnny. 'Anyway, some girls go and become engineers and things, so they can do proper stuff if they want.'

'Transcend the limitations of their sex. Outdo the other sex, even. Yes. It is much the same with us. Some individuals show

an awe inspiring desire to succeed, to make a career in a field not traditionally considered to be appropriate to their gender.'

'You, you mean,' said Johnny. 'I was referring to the Gunnery Officer.'

'But he's a man - I mean, a male.' 'Yes. Traditionally, ScreeWee warriors are female. They are more inclined to fight. Our ancestors used to have to fight to protect their breeding pond. The males do not do battle. But in his case- A speck appeared on the radar.

Johnny put down his cup and watched it carefully.

Normally, players headed straight for the fleet. This one didn't. It hovered right on the edge of the screen and stayed there, keeping pace with the ScreeWee ships.

After a while, another dot appeared from the same direction, and kept on coming.

This one at least looked like just another player. There was a nasty equation at the back of Johnny's mind. It concerned missiles. There were the six missiles per level in Only You Can Save Mankind. Once you'd fired them, that was it. So the longer he stayed alive, the less he had to fight with. But all the attacking players would have six missiles each. He'd only got four now. When they were gone, it'd just be guns. One missile in the right place would blow him up. Losing was kind of built-in, in the circumstances.

The attacker came on. But Johnny kept finding his gaze creeping to the dot at the edge of the screen. Somehow it had a watchful look, like a shark trailing a leaky airbed.

He switched on the communicator.

'Attacking ship! Attacking ship! Stop now!' They can't speak, Johnny thought. They're only a player, they're not in the game. They can't speak and they can't listen.

He found he'd automatically targeted a missile on the approaching dot. But that couldn't be the only way. Sooner or later you had to talk, even if it was only because you'd run out of things to throw.

The attacker fired a missile. It streaked past Johnny

and away, heading on into empty space.

Not real, Johnny thought. You have to think they're

not real. Otherwise you can't do it.

'Attacking ship! This is your last chance! Look, I

mean it!'

He pressed the button. The ship juddered slightly as

a missile took off. The attacker was moving fast. So was

the missile. They met and became an expanding red

cloud. It drifted around Johnny's ship like a smoke ring.

Someone, somewhere, was blinking at their screen

and probably swearing. He hoped.

The dot was still on the edge of the screen. It was

irritating him, like an itch in a place he couldn't scratch.

Because that wasn't how you were supposed to play.

You spotted some aliens and you shot at them. That

was what the game was supposed to be about.

Lurking in the distance and just watching made him

uneasy. It looked like the kind of thing people would

do if they were ... well

taking it seriously.

The Captain sat in front of her desk, watching the big screen. She was chewing. Anything was better than waterweed, even - she looked at the packet - even Sugar-Frosted Corn Crackles in cold bovine lactation. Sweet and crunchy, but with odd hard bits in.

She inserted a claw into her mouth and poked around among her teeth until she found the offending object.

She pulled it out and looked at it.

It was green, and had four arms. Most of them were holding some sort of weapon.

She wondered again what these things were. The Chief Medical Officer had suggested that they were, in fact, some sort of vermin which invaded food sources. There was a theory among the crew that they were things to do with religion. Offerings to food gods, perhaps?

She put it carefully on one side of her desk. In the right light, she thought, it looked a bit like the Gun- nery Officer.

Then she opened the little cage beside the bowl and let her birds out.

There had been things very like alligators among the ScreeWee's distant ancestors, and some habits had been handed down. The Captain opened her mouth fully, which made her lower and upper jaws move apart in a way that would make a human's eyes water.

The birds hopped in, and began to clean her teeth. One of them found a small piece of plastic ray-gun.

The watching ship was moving, still keeping at a great distance, travelling around the fleet in a wide cir- cle. It had watched one more attacker come in; Johnny had got rid of this one with a missile and some shots. although a flashing red light on the panel was sug- gesting that something, somewhere, wasn't working any more. Probably those secondary pumps again.

He found he was turning the ship all the time to keep the distant dot in front of him.

Johnny?'

It was the Captain.

'Yes? Are you watching it?'

'Yes. It is moving between us and the Border. It is in our direct line of flight now.

'You can't sort of steer around it?'

'There are more than three hundred ships in the fleet That may be difflcult.'

'It seems to be waiting for something. I'll... I'll risk going to have a look.'

He let his ship overtake the fleet and run ahead of it, towards the distant dot.

It made no attempt to get out of his way.

It was a starship just like his own. In fact, in a way ... it was his starship. After all, there was only one starship in the entire game, the one You flew to Save Mankind. Everyone was flying the same one in a way.

It hung against the stars, as lifeless as a Space Invader. Johnny moved a bit closer, until he could see the cockpit and even the shape of a head inside. It had a helmet on. Everyone did - it was on the cover of the box. You wore a helmet in a starship. He didn't know why. Maybe the designers thought you were likely to fall off when you went round corners.

He tried the communicator again.

'Hello? Can you hear me?'

There was nothing but the background hiss of the universe.

'I'm pretty sure you can. I've got a feeling about it.'

The tiny blob of the helmet turned towards him. You could no more see through the smoked glass of the helmet than you could through a pair of sunglasses from the outside, but he knew he was being stared at.

'What are you waiting for?' said Johnny. 'Look, I know you can hear me, I don't want to have to-'

The other ship roared into life. It accelerated towards the oncoming fleet on two lances of blue light.

Johnny swore under his breath and kicked his own engines into life. There was no hope of over- taking the attacker. It had a head start, and a starfighter's top speed was a starfighter's top speed.

It was just out of gun range. He raced along behind

Ahead, he could see some of the big capital ships of the fleet manoeuvring clumsily out of the way. They spread out slowly, trying to avoid colliding with one another. Seen from the front, it was like watching the petals of a flower opening.

The attacker roared for the middle of the fleet. Then it rolled gently and fired six missiles, one after another. A moment later, two of the small ScreeWee fighters exploded and one of the larger ships spun around as it was hit.

The attacker was already heading for another fighter. Johnny had to admit it - it was beautiful flying. He'd never realized before how badly most players flew. They flew like people who lived on the ground - from right to left and up and down, woodenly. Like someone moving something on a screen, in fact.

But the attacker rolled and twisted like a swallow in flight. And every turn brought another ScreeWee ship under its guns. Even if they had been firing back, it wouldn't have been hit, except by accident. It pirouetted.

The Captain's face appeared on the screen. 'You must stop this!'

'I'm trying! I'm trying! Don't you think I'm trying!' The attacker turned. Johnny hadn't thought it was possible for a starship to skid, but this one did. It paused just for a moment as its jets slowed it down, and then accelerated back the way it had come.

Right down his sights.

'Look, stop!' he shouted. He had a missile ready. Why even bother to shout? Players couldn't hear, they only saw the game on the screen- 'Who are you?'

It was a very clear voice, and very human. The Cap- tain sounded as though she'd learned the language out of a book, but this voice was one that someone had really used since they were about one year old.

'You can hear me!'

'Get out of the way, stupid!'

The two pilots stared at one another across a distance that was getting smaller very, very fast.

I've heard that before, Johnny thought. That voice. You can hear all the punctuation .

They didn't crash - exactly. There was a grinding noise as each starship scraped the length of the other, ripping off fins, ripping open tanks, and then spun drunkenly away.

The control panel in front of Johnny became a mass of red lights. There were cracks racing across the cockpit.

'Idiot!' screamed the radio. 'It's all right,' said Johnny urgently. 'You just wake up - His ship exploded.