'It seems to be waiting for something. I'll... I'll riskgoing 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 away ... it was his starship. After all, there was onlyone starship in the entire game, the one You flew toSave Mankind. Everyone was flying the same onein a way.

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

He tried the communicator again.

'Hello? Can you hear me?'

There was nothing but the background hiss of theuniverse.

'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 ofthe helmet than you could through a pair of sunglassesfrom the outside, but he knew he was being staredat.

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

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

Johnny swore under his breath and kicked hisown engines into life. There was no hope of over-taking the attacker. It had a head start, and astarfighter'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 ofthe fleet manoeuvring clumsily out of the way. Theyspread out slowly, trying to avoid colliding with oneanother. Seen from the front, it was like watching thepetals of a flower opening.

The attacker roared for the middle of the fleet. Thenit rolled gently and fired six missiles, one after another.A moment later, two of the small ScreeWee fightersexploded and one of the larger ships spun around as itwas hit.

The attacker was already heading for another fighter.Johnny had to admit it - it was beautiful flying. He'dnever realized before how badly most players flew.They flew like people who lived on the ground - fromright to left and up and down, woodenly. Like someonemoving something on a screen, in fact.

But the attacker rolled and twisted like a swallow inflight. And every turn brought another ScreeWee shipunder its guns. Even if they had been firing back, itwouldn'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 waspossible for a starship to skid, but this one did. It pausedjust for a moment as its jets slowed it down, and thenaccelerated 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, theyonly 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 outof a book, but this voice was one that someone hadreally 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 distancethat 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 grindingnoise as each starship scraped the length of the other,ripping off fins, ripping open tanks, and then spundrunkenly away.

The control panel in front of Johnny became a massof red lights. There were cracks racing across thecockpit.

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

The Dark Tower

It was 16:34° by the thermometer. Time was differentin game space.No matter how often you died, you never got usedto it. It wasn't as if you got better with pract-She'd heard him. Inside the game.He sat up.

The ScreeWee were inside the game because it wastheir world. Wobbler and the rest hadn't really been init; he was pretty sure he'd just dreamed them in becausehe needed someone to pilot the food tankers.

But he'd heard her in Patel's. That ringing, sharpvoice, which made it very clear that its owner thoughteveryone in the whole world was dim-witted and hadto be talked to like a baby or a foreigner.

On the screen, empty space rolled onwards.He had to find her. Apart from anything else, no-onewho flew like that should be allowed anywhere near theScreeWee.

Wobbler'd probably know who she was.

He found the room moving around him when hestood up. He probably really was ill, he thought.Well, not surprising. What with Trying Times andstupid school and parents trying to be friends andnow having to save an entire alien race instead of..

He made it to the hail and took the phone off its baseand brought it back upstairs. He'd just extended theaerial when it rang.

'Um, hello - Blackbury-two-three-nine-nine-eight-zero-who's-that-speaking-please?'

'Is that you? This is me.'

'Oh. Hello, Wobbler.'

'You ill or something?'

'Flu. Look, Wobbler-'

'You seen the papers today?'

'No. Mum and Dad take them to work with them.Wobbler-'

'Thing in the papers about Gobi Software. Hangon ... says, "NO ENCOUNTERS OF THETWENTY-FIRST KIND." That's the headline.'

Johnny hesitated.

'What does it say?' he said, very cautiously.

'What does "inundated" mean?'

'S'like "overwhelmed",' said Johnny.

'Says that Gobi Software and computer games shopshave been ... inundated with complaints about OnlyYou Can Save Mankind. Because they made that offer offive pounds if you shoot all the aliens, and it says peoplearen't finding any aliens. And Gobi Software are introuble because of the Trades Descriptions Act. Andthey keep on using the word hacker,' said Wobbler, inthe sneering tones of one who knows what a hackerreally is and knows that most journalists don't. 'Andthere's a quote from Al Rampa, president of Gobi. Hesays they're recalling all the games, and if you send backthe original discs they'll send you a token for theirnew game, Dodge City 1888. That got four stars inFAAzzzzAAAP!.'

'Yes, but you haven't got the original discs,' saidJohnny. 'You hardly ever have any original discs.'

'No, but I know the guy whose brother bought it,'said Wobbler happily. 'So it was just a problem withthe game, right? You weren't mental after all.'

'I never said I was mental,' said Johnny.

'No, but ... well, you know,' said Wobbler. Hesounded embarrassed.

'Wobbler?'

'Yes?'

'You know that girl who was in Patel's?'

'Oh. her. What about her?'

'D'you know who she is?'

'She's someone's sister, I think.'

'Whose?'

'Goes to some kind of special school for the termi-nally clever. She's called Kylie or Krystal or one ofthose made-up names. What do you want to knowfor?'

'Oh, nothing. Just because she complained about thegame in Patel's, I suppose. Whose sister is she?'

'Some guy called ... oh ... Plonker. Yeah. Friendof Bigmac's. You sure you're all right?'

'Yes. Fine. Cheers.''Cheers. You going to be in tomorrow?''Spect so.''Cheers.''Cheers.

Bigmac wasn't on the phone. Where Bigmac lived,people hardly even got letters. Even muggers werefrightened to go there. People talked about the JoshuaN'Clement block in the same way that they probablySpanish Inquisition's reception area.