So the ships he'd seen, then, were the ones whowouldn't give up.

But the Captain hadn't been at all grateful to him!It wasn't fair, making him feel like some kind ofmonster. As if he'd like shooting anyone in cold blood!They'd just totally destroyed another ship. OK, it wasattacking them after they had surrendered, but after allit was a only a game .

Except, of course, it wasn't a game to the ScreeWee.

And they'd surrendered.

That didn't make them his responsibility, did it? Notthe whole time? It had been OK for a little while, buthe was getting tired of it.

He padded downstairs in the darkened house andpulled the encyclopedia off its shelf under the video. Ithad been bought last year from a man at the door,who'd persuaded Johnny's father that it was a goodencyclopedia because it had a lot of colour pictures init. It did have a lot of colour pictures in it. You couldgrow up knowing what everything looked like, ifyou didn't mind not knowing much about what itwas.

After ten minutes with the index he got as far asprisoners of war, and eventually to the Geneva Conven-tion. It wasn't something you could illustrate with bigcoloured pictures so there wasn't much about it, butwhat there was he read with interest.

It was amazing.

He'd always thought that prisoners were, well,prisoners - you hadn't actually killed them, so theyought to think themselves lucky. But it turned out thatyou had to give them the same food as your ownsoldiers, and look after them and generally keep themsafe. Even if they'd just bombed a whole city you hadto help them out of their crashed plane, give themmedicine, and treat them properly.

Johnny stared at the page. It was weird. The peoplewho'd written the encyclopedia - it said inside the coverthat they were the Universal Wonder Knowledge DataPrinting Inc, of Power Cable, Nebraska - had shovedin all these pictures of parrots and stuff because theywere the Natural Wonders of the World, when whatwas really strange was that human beings had come upwith an idea like this. It was like finding a tiny bit ofthe Middle Ages in the middle of all the missiles andthings.

Johnny knew about the Middle Ages because ofdoing his essay on 'What it felt like to be a peasant inthe Middle Ages'. 'When a knight fell off his horse inbattle the other side weren't allowed to open him upwith a can opener and torture him, but had to look afterhim and send him back home after a while, althoughthey were allowed to charge for the service.

On the whole, the ScreeWee were letting him offlightly. According to the Geneva Convention, heought to be feeding all of them as well.

He put the book back and turned the television on.

That was odd. Someone was complaining that theenemy were putting prisoners of war in buildings thatmight be bombed, so that they could be bombed bytheir own side. That was a barbaric thing, said the man.Everyone else in the studio agreed.

So did Johnny, in a way. But he wondered bow hewould explain something like this to the Captain.Everything made sense a bit at a time. It was just whenyou tried to think of it all at once that it came outwrong.

There was too much war on television now. He feltit was time to start showing something else.

He went out into the kitchen and made himself sometoast, and then tried to scrape the burnt bits off quietlyso as not to wake people up. He took the toast and theencyclopedia upstairs and got back into bed.

To pass the time he read some more about Switzer-land, which was where Geneva was. Every man in thecountry had to do army training and keep a gun athome, it said. But Switzerland never fought anyone.Perhaps that made sense somewhere. And what thecountry used to be known for was designing intricateand ingenious mechanical masterpieces that made alittle wooden bird come out and go cuckoo.

After a while he dozed off, and didn't dream at all.

On the screen the fake stars drifted by. After an houror so a yellow dot appeared in the very centre. Afteranother hour it grew slightly bigger, enough to be seenas a cluster of smaller yellow dots.

Then Johnny's mother, who had come to see wherehe was, tucked him up and switched it off.'I cannot believe this! Why can't we fight!'

If Not You, Who Else?

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

She could feel the eyes of her officers on her. Shedidn'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 thefirst shots.'

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

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

'He was about to fire.'

'About is too late. The tanker Kreewhea is destroyed.Along with half our campaign provisions, I shouldadd ... 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 hundredand two, and he was suffering from what his mothercalled Sunday night flu. He was lying in the lovelywarm glow that comes from knowing that, whateverhappens, there'll be no school tomorrow.

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

It was what came of spending all his time in front ofa computer, he'd been told, instead of in the healthyfresh air. He couldn't quite see this, even in his itchy-eyeball state. Surely the fresh air would have beenworse? But in his experience being ill always came ofwhatever you'd been doing. Parents would probablymanage to say it came of taking vitamins and wrappingup nice and warm. He'd probably get an appointmentdown at the health centre next Friday, since theyalways liked you to be good and ill by the time youcame, so that the doctors could be sure of what you'd got.

He could hear the TV downstairs. He spent twentyminutes wondering whether to get out of bed to switchon his old one, but when he moved there were purpleblurs in front of his eyes and an ongoing hum in his ears.