'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 thenvanished off the edge of the screen.

Where to, Johnny had no idea.

I may have wished them here, or dreamed them, orsomething. But I mustn't do it again. Maybe they'renot 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 abit further each time.'

There were still no more attackers on the screen. Thefleet looked as if it wasn't moving, but it had built upquite a speed. Every second was taking it further fromgame space. Every second meant that fewer and fewerplayers would have the patience or determination to goon looking for it.

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

Johnny?'

'Yes?'

'I believe I upset you some time ago by suggesting thathumans 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 musthave been flying your ship?'

'No. It's hard to explain it to you,' said Johnny. Firstof 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 incharge. You must have things to do.'

'Oh, spaceships fly themselves,' said the Captain. 'Theykeep going until they hit things. There is little to do. Tendthe wounded and so on. I seldom have a chance to talk tohumans. 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 andthings, 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 fieldnot 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. Theyare more inclined to fight. Our ancestors used to have to fightto protect their breeding pond. The males do not do battle. Butin his case-A speck appeared on the radar.

Johnny put down his cup and watched it carefully.

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

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

This one at least looked like just another player.There was a nasty equation at the back of Johnny'smind. It concerned missiles. There were the six missilesper level in Only You Can Save Mankind. Once you'dfired them, that was it. So the longer he stayed alive,the less he had to fight with. But all the attackingplayers would have six missiles each. He'd only got fournow. When they were gone, it'd just be guns. Onemissile in the right place would blow him up. Losingwas kind of built-in, in the circumstances.

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

He switched on the communicator.

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

He found he'd automatically targeted a missile on theapproaching dot. But that couldn't be the only way.Sooner or later you had to talk, even if it was onlybecause 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 bigscreen. She was chewing. Anything was better thanwaterweed, even - she looked at the packet - evenSugar-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 aroundamong 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 wereholding some sort of weapon.

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

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

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

There had been things very like alligators among theScreeWee's distant ancestors, and some habits had beenhanded down. The Captain opened her mouth fully,which made her lower and upper jaws move apart in away 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 agreat distance, travelling around the fleet in a wide cir-cle. It had watched one more attacker come in; Johnnyhad 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 workingany more. Probably those secondary pumps again.

He found he was turning the ship all the time to keepthe 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 ourdirect line of flight now.

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

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