The Captain spun around. The Gunnery Officerjumped backwards, hit the ground running, and spedtowards the door. He was through it in a blur.

'He can't go anywhere,' said the Captain, staggeringacross to the controls. 'I ... can deal with him later . .

'You've got some nasty scratches,' said Kirsty.ScreeWee blood was blue. 'I know some first aid ..

'A lot, I expect,' said Johnny.

'But not for ScreeWee, I imagine,' said the Captain.Her chest was heaving. One of her legs seemed to beat the wrong angle. Blue patches covered her tail.

'You could have just shot him,' said Kirsty. 'It wasstupid to fight like that.'

'Honour!' snarled the Captain. She tripped a switchwith a claw and hissed some instructions in ScreeWee.'But he was right. Sadly, I know this now. There is nochanging ScreeWee nature. Our destiny is to fight anddie. I have been foolish to think otherwise.'

She blinked.

'Take off your shirt,' Kirsty demanded.

'What?' said Johnny.

'Your shirt! Your shirt! Look at her! She's losingblood! She needs bandaging!'

Johnny obeyed, reluctantly.

'You've got a vest on underneath? Only grandadswear a vest. Yuk. Don't you ever wash your clothes?'

He did, sometimes. And occasionally his mother hada burst of being a mother and everything in the housegot washed. But usually he used the wash-basket laun-dry, which consisted of going through the basket untilhe found something that didn't seem all that bad.

'But she said you wouldn't know anything aboutScreeWee medicine,' he said.

'So what? Even if it's blue, blood's still blood. Youshould try to keep it inside.'

Kirsty helped the Captain to a chair. The alien wasswaying a bit, and her scales had gone white, speckledwith blue.

'Is there anything I can do?' said Johnny.

Kirsty glanced at him. 'I don't know,' she said. 'Isthere anything you can do?'

She turned back to the Captain.

We'll all die, Johnny thought. They're all out therewaiting. And here's me at the controls of the main alienship. We can't turn round now. And I can't even readwhat it says on the controls!

I've done it all wrong. It was all simple, and now it'sall complicated.

You think about doing things in dreams, but we'realways wrong about dreams. When people talk aboutdreams they mean daydreams. That's where you'reSuperman or whatever. That's where you win every-thing. In dreams everything is weird. I'm in a dreamnow. Or something Like a dream. And when I wake up,all the ScreeWee will be back in game space and they'llbe shot at again, just like the Space Invaders.

Hang on . .

Hang on . .

He stared at the meaningless controls again.

On one of them the symbols ~ S If crearranged themselves to form 'Main Engines

This is my world, too. It's in my head.

He looked up at the big screen.

All of them. They're all there, waiting. In bedroomsand lounges around the world. In between watchingCobbers and doing their homework.

All waiting with their finger on the Fire button, andeach one thinking that they're the only one

All there, in front of me

'I wasn't expecting to do this,' said Kirsty, behindhim. 'I wasn't expecting to be bandaging aliens. Put aclaw on this knot, will you? What's your pulse level?''I don't think we have them,' said the Captain.The ship thumped.

The distant background rumble of the engines wassuddenly a roar.

The seats had bits sticking up where humans didn'texpect bits to stick up. Johnny was sitting cross-leggedon one, both hands on the controls, face multi-colouredin the light of the screen.

Kirsty tapped him on the shoulder. 'What are youdoing?'

'Flying,' said Johnny, without turning his head.

'He said it's too late to turn round.'

'I'm not turning round.'

'You don't know how to fly one of these!''I'm not flying one of these. I'm flying the wholefleet.'

'You can't understand the controls!'

Green and red light made patterns on his face as heturned to her.

'You know, everyone tells me things. All the time,'he said. 'Well, I'm not listening now. I can read thecontrols. Why not? They're in my head. Now sitdown. I shall need you to do some things. And stoptalking to me as if I'm stupid.'

She sat down, almost hypnotized by his tone ofvoice.'But how-'

'There's a control that lets this ship steer all theothers as well. It's used on long voyages.' He moved alever. 'And I'm flying them as fast as I can. I don't thinkthey can go any faster. All the dials have gone into the% /2 © - that's ScreeWee for red.'

'But you're heading straight for the players!'

'I've got to. There isn't time to turn round . .

Wobbler had a pin-up over his bed. It was a close-upphotograph of the Intel 8058675 microprocessor,taken through a microscope; it looked like a street mapof a very complicated modern city. His grandfathercomplained that it was unhealthy and why didn't hehave a double page spread from Giggles and Gartersinstead, but Wobbler had a vision: one day, if he couldmaster GCSE maths and reliably pick up a solderingiron by the end that wasn't hot, he was going to be aBig Man in computers. A Number One programmer,with his hair in a ponytail at the back like they all wore.Never mind about Yo-less saying it was all run by menin suits these days. One day, the world would hear fromWobbler Johnson - probably via a phone-line it didn'tknow was connected to its computer.

In the meantime, he was staring at columns ofnumbers in an effort to make a completely illegal copyofMrBunleyGoesBoing. It had been given four stars anddeclared 'megabad!!!', which was what Splaaaaatttdmagazine still thought meant pretty good if you wereunder sixteen.

He blinked at the screen, and smeared the grease onhis glasses a bit more evenly.

And that was enough for tonight.

He sat back, and his eye caught sight of Only YouCan Save Mankind, under a pile of other discs.

Poor old Rubber. Of course, you called people men-tal all the time, but there was something weird abouthim. His body walked around down on Earth but hisbrain was probably somewhere you couldn't find withan atlas.

Wobbler shoved the disc in the drive. Odd about thegame, though. There was probably a logical reason forit. That's what computers were, logical. Start believinganything else and you were in trouble.The title came up, and then the bit that Gobi Soft-ware had pinched from Star Wars, and then-His jaw dropped.Ships. Hundreds of them. Getting bigger and bigger.Yellow ships, filling the screen, so that it was justblack and yellow and just yellow and then blindingwhite.Wobbler ducked.And then a black screen.Almost black, anyway.For a moment the words hung there.Hi, Wobler-And then vanished.

More alarms were clanging and whooping.Kirsty peered out from between her fingers.'I don't think we hit anyone,' said Johnny, tappingon the keys.'You flew straight through them!''That's right!'

'OK, but they'll still come after us.'

'So now we turn round. It'll take a little while. How'sthe Captain?'

A clawed hand gripped the back of his chair, and hersnout rested on his shoulder.

'This is very bad,' said the Captain. 'Our engines arenot designed to run at this sort of speed for any lengthof time. They could break down at any moment.'

'It's a calculated risk,' said Johnny.

'Really? How precisely did you calculate it?' said theScreeWee.

'Well ... not exactly calculate ... I just thought itwas worth a try,' said Johnny.

'You're turning back towards the players!''And we're still accelerating,' said Johnny.'What were you typing just then?' said Kirsty.'Oh, nothing,' said Johnny. grinning. 'Just thoughtI saw someone I recognized. You know, as we flashedpast.'

'Why are you looking so happy?' she demanded.'We're in terrible trouble.'