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

'Yes, but-'

'We will not fire on human ships. Sooner or later, ithas to stop. We will run instead. Someone gave us safeconduct.'

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 knowit's not real. I've got the flu. You get mild hallucina-tions when you get the flu. Everyone knows that. Iremember I was ill once and all the floppy bunnies onthe wallpaper started dancing about. This is like that.You can't really know about this stuff. You're just inmy head.'

'What difference does that make?' said the Captain.She stepped out through the wall, and then poked herhead 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 theCaptain. 'Have you ever wondered what the ScreeWeeword for ScreeWee is?'

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

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

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

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

He wandered aimlessly through the rooms. Theredie of the day. It was all women talking to one anotheron sofas. He sneaked a look out into the road, just incase there were half-mile-long rocket-exhaust burns.And then he went back upstairs and sat and stared atthe 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 peoplewould be at school or at least keeping a low profilesomewhere. Johnny wasn't quite certain about gametime and real time, but maybe the attacks stopped whenpeople had to go to school? But no, there were prob-ably people playing it in America or Australia orsomewhere.

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 outthere. Or in there. Or in here.

The Captain was stupid not to fire back.

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

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

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

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

And then the same old stars.

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

He glanced at the clock. It was just gone fouro'clock. People would be home from school now.They'd be watching Cobbers and She'll Be Apples andMoonee Ponds. Bigmac would be watching with hismouth open at his brother's. Wobbler would be watch-ing while trying to rob some other poor computergames writer of his just rewards. Yo-less probablywouldn't be paying much attention, exactly; it'd just beon while he did his homework. Yo-less always did hishomework when he got home from school and didn'tpay attention to anything else until it had been finishedto 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 madeit. 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 hadbought 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 PicnicTable. Even the thing for getting fluff out of socks.

'Away with Not Being Able to Know What theTime is All the Time Blues,' said Johnny vaguely, andstuck the thermometer in his mouth for the requiredtwenty seconds.

His temperature was 16:04°.

No wonder he felt cold.

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

The rest of them would probably be down at the mallnow, unless Yo-less was trying for an A+ with hishomework. Hanging out. Waiting for another day toend.

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

Still nothing but stars on the screen ...

Chicken Lumps In Space

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

Then he noticed the other ships on the screen. Hewas still along way from the fleet, of course. But therewere 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 seemedto wallow rather than fly.

He hit the Communications button. A plump faceappeared 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 onthe control thingy, I'm flying a Class Three Lighthead?'

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

Sure enough, when he pressed it Wobbler's facedrifted to the top left-hand corner of the screen.Yo-less's face appeared in the opposite corner, withJohnny's own head above it. The other corner stayedblank.

Johnny tapped a button.

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

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

'Checking the cargo?' said Johnny sarcastically.

'It's full of hamburgers!' said Bigmac, in a voice likea good monk who's just arrived in heaven and foundthat all the sins of the flesh are allowed. 'Boxes andboxes of hamburgers! I mean millions! With fries. Andone 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. ShallI go and see what they are?'

'OK,' said Johnny. 'Then that means you're drivingthe 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. 'InGiant-Jumbo-Mega-Civilization-Sized boxes.'

'Then Bigmac'd better bring his ship between youand Wobbler,' said Johnny briskly. 'We can't risk acollision.

'Snap, crackle. fababababBOOM!' said Bigmac andWobbler.

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

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