She waddled a little way along the bare corridor,keeping close to the wall. Johnny trailed behind her.

'Dreams are always tricky,' he said.'Yes.'

'But they'll wake up when the players start shootingagain, won't they? They'll soon see what he is leadingthem into?'

'We have a proverb,' said the Captain. 'Skeejeeshe-jweeJEEyee. It means ...' she thought for a moment,'when you are riding a jee, a six-legged domesticatedbeast of burden capable of simple instruction but alsotraditionally foul-tempered, it is easier to stay on ratherthan dismount; equally, better to trust yourself to fatethan risk attack from the sure-footed JEEyee, whichwill easily outrun a ScreeWee on foot. Of course, it isa little snappier in our language.'

They'd reached a corner. The Captain peered aroundit, and then jerked her head back.

'There is a guard outside the door of my cabin,' shesaid. 'She is armed.'

'Can you talk to her?'

'She is under orders. I fear that I will only be allowedto say "Aaargh!' said the Captain. 'But feel free tomake the attempt. I have no other options.'

Oh, well - you only die a few hundred times,thought Johnny. He stepped out into the corridor.

The guard turned to look at him, and half raised amelted-looking thing that nevertheless very clearly said'gun'. But she looked at him in puzzlement.

She's never seen a human before! he thought.

He spread his arms wide in what he hoped was aninnocent-looking way, and smiled.

Which just goes to show that you shouldn't takethings for granted because, as the Captain told himlater, when a ScreeWee is about to fight she does twothings. She spreads her front pairs of arms wide (to gripand throttle) and exposes her teeth (ready to bite).

The guard raised the gun.

Then there was a thunderous knocking on the otherside of the cabin door.

The guard made a simple mistake. She should haveignored the knocking, loud and desperate though itwas, and concentrated on Johnny. But she tried to keepthe gun pointing in his general direction while shepressed a panel by the door. After all, it was only theCaptain in there, wasn't it? And the Captain was stillthe Captain, even if she was locked up. She could keepan eye on both of them . .

The door opened a little way. A foot came out,swinging upwards, and caught the guard under thesnout. There was a click as all its teeth met. Its eyescrossed.

Someone shouted: 'Haul!'

The guard swayed backwards. Kirsty came throughthe door airborne and started hacking at the guard'sarms with her hands. It dropped the gun. She pickedit up in one movement. The guard opened its mouthto bite, spread its arms to grip and throttle, and thenwent cross-eyed because the gun barrel was suddenlythrust between its teeth.

'Don't ... swallow ...' said Kirsty, verydeliberately.

There was a sudden, very heavy silence. The guardstayed very still.

'This is a friend of mine,' said Johnny.

'Oh, yes,' said the Captain. 'Sigourney. One of yourwarriors. Is she a friend of mine?'

'At the moment,' said Sigourney, without movingher head. She had tied one of the strips of webbing fromthe Captain's bed around her forehead. She was breath-ing heavily. There was a wild glint in her eye. Johnnysuddenly felt very sorry for the guard.

'You know, I'm glad she's a friend of mine,' said theCaptain.

'He ee ogg ee?' said the guard. Its arms were tremb-ling. The ScreeWee didn't sweat, but this one wouldprobably have liked to.

'We'd better tie her up and put her in the cabin,' saidJohnny.

'Ees!' said the guard.

'I could just fire,' said Sigourney wistfully.

'No!' said Johnny and the Captain together.

'Eep!' said the guard.

'Oh, all right.' Sigourney relaxed. The guard sagged.'Sorry to be late,' said Sigourney. 'Had a bit of trou-ble getting to sleep.'

The Captain said something to the guard inScreeWee. It nodded in a strangely human way andtrooped obediently into the cabin, where it squatteddown just as obediently and let them tie its hands andfeet with more bits of bed.

'You've got a black belt in karate too, I expect,' saidJohnny.

'Only purple,' she said. 'But I haven't been doing itlong,' she added quickly. 'Huh! Is that the only kindof knot you can tie?'

'I went to karate once, with Bigmac,' said Johnny,trying to ignore that.

'What happened?'

'I got my foot caught in my trousers.'

'And you are the Chosen One? Huh! They could havechosen me.

'They tried. But I was the one who listened,' saidJohnny quietly.

Sigourney picked up the gun and cradled it in herarms.

'Well, I'm here now,' she said, 'And ready to kicksome butt.'

'Some but what?' said Johnny wearily. He reallyhated the phrase. It was a game saying. It tried to foolyou into believing that real bullets weren't going to gothrough real people.

Sigourney sniffed.

'Nerd.'

They went back into the corridor.

'By the way,' said Johnny, 'what happened tome?'

'You just collapsed. Right there on the floor. We'vegot a doctor living next door. Mum went and got her.Unusually bright of her, really. She said you were justtired out and looked as though you hadn't been eatingproperly.'

'This is true,' said the Captain. 'Did I not say? Toomuch sugar and carbohydrate, not enough freshvitamins. You should get out more.

'Yeah, right,' said Johnny.

There was something different about the corridor.Before, it had been grey metal, only interesting if youreally liked looking at nuts and bolts. But now it wasdarker, with more curves; the walls glistened, and drip-ped menace. Dripped something, anyway.

The Captain looked different, too. She hadn'tchanged, exactly - it was just that her teeth and clawswere somehow more obvious. A few minutes ago, shehad been an intelligent person who just happened to bean eight-legged crocodile; now she was an eight-leggedcrocodile who just happened to be intelligent.

Game space was changing now two people weresharing one dream.

'Hold on, there's-' he began.

'Don't let's hang around,' said Sigourney.

'But you're-' Johnny began.

Dreaming it wrong, he finished to himself.

This really is nuts, he told himself as he trailed afterthem. At home Kirsty went around being Miss Brains.In here it was all: Make my shorts! Eat my day!

The Captain waddled at high speed along the cor-ridors. Now steam was dribbling from somewhere,making the floor misty and wet.

There wasn't that much in the ScreeWee ships.Perhaps they ought to have sat down and worked outthe inside of one in a bit more detail before they'ddreamed, he thought. They could have added morecabins and big screens and interesting things like that;as it was, all there seemed to be were these snaking cor-ridors that were unpleasantly like caves.

Bigger caves, though. They'd got wider. Mysteriouspassages led off in various directions.

Sigourney crept along with her back against the wall,spinning around rapidly every time they passed anotherpassage. She stiffened.

'There's another one coming!' she hissed. 'it'spushing something! Get back!'

She elbowed them into the wall. Johnny could hearthe scrape-scrape of claws on the floor, and somethingrattling.'When it gets closer I'll get it. I'll leap out-'Johnny poked his head around the corner.'Kirsty?'She took no notice.'Sigourney?' he tried.'Yes?'

'I know you're going to leap out,' said Johnny, 'butdon't pull the trigger, right?'

'It's an alien!'

'So it's an alien. You don't have to shoot themall.'

The rattling got closer. There was also a faintsqueaking.

Sigourney gripped the gun excitedly, and leapt out.

'OK, you - oh ... um .

It was a very small ScreeWee. Most of its scales weregrey. Its crest was nearly worn away. Its tail justdragged behind it. When it opened its mouth, therewere three teeth left and they were huddling togetherat the back.