Only You Can Save Mankind Read online

  The Captain smiled. The shrug had been impressive. But the Captain’s mouth was half a metre long.

  ‘You humans are strange,’ she said. ‘You are warlike. But you make rules! Rules of war!’

  ‘Um. I think we don’t always obey all those rules,’ said Johnny.

  Another four-armed shrug.

  ‘Does that matter? Even to have made such rules . . . You think all of life is a game.’

  The Captain pulled a small piece of silvery paper out of a pocket of her overall.

  ‘Your attackers have left us too short of food. So, by your rules,’ she said, ‘I must ask for the following: fifteen tonnes of pressed wheat extractions treated with sucrose; ten thousand litres of cold bovine lactation; twenty-five tonnes of the baked wheat extraction containing grilled bovine flesh and trace ingredients, along with chopped and fried tubers and fried and corn-extract-coated rings of vegetables of the allium family; one tonne of crushed mustard seeds mixed with water and permitted additives; three tonnes of exploded corn kernels coated with lactic derivation; ten thousand litres of coloured water containing sucrose and trace elements; fifteen tonnes of prepared and fermented wheat extract in vegetable juice; one thousand tonnes of soured lactic acid flavoured with fruit extract. Daily. Thank you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The food of your fighting men,’ explained the Captain.

  ‘Doesn’t sound like food.’

  ‘You are right,’ said the Captain. ‘It is disgustingly lacking in fresh vegetables and dangerously high in carbohydrates and saturated fats. However, it appears that this is what you eat.’

  ‘Me? I don’t even know what that stuff is! What are pressed wheat extractions treated with sucrose?’

  ‘It said “Snappiflakes” on the packet,’ said the Captain.

  ‘Soured lactic acid?’

  ‘You had a banana yoghurt.’

  Johnny’s lips moved as he tried to work this out.

  ‘The grilled bovine flesh and all that stuff?’

  ‘A hamburger and fries with fried onion rings.’

  Johnny tried to sit up.

  ‘Are you saying that I’ve got to go down to the shops and get takeaway Jumboburgers for an entire alien spacefleet?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘I should think not—’

  ‘My Chief Engineer wants a Bucket of Chicken Lumps.’

  ‘What do ScreeWee usually eat?’

  ‘Normally we eat a kind of waterweed. It contains a perfect balance of vitamins, minerals and trace elements to ensure a healthy growth of scale and crest.’

  ‘Then why—’

  ‘But, as you would put it, it tastes like poo.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The Captain stood up. It was a beautiful movement. The ScreeWee body had no angles in it, apart from the elbows and knees; she seemed to be able to bend wherever she wanted.

  ‘And now I must return,’ she said. ‘I hope your attack of minor germs will shortly be over. I could only wish that my attack of human beings was as easily cured.’

  ‘Why aren’t you fighting back?’ said Johnny. ‘I know you can.’

  ‘No. You are wrong. We have surrendered.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ’We will not fire on human ships. Sooner or later, it has to stop. We will run instead. Someone gave us safe conduct.’

  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 know it’s not real. I’ve got the flu. You get mild hallucinations when you get the flu. Everyone knows that. I remember I was ill once and all the floppy bunnies on the wallpaper started dancing about. This is like that. You can’t really know about this stuff. You’re just in my head.’

  ‘What difference does that make?’ said the Captain. She stepped out through the wall, and then poked her head 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 the Captain. ‘Have you ever wondered what the ScreeWee word for ScreeWee is?’

  He must have slept, but he didn’t dream. He woke up in the middle of the afternoon.

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

  The house was empty. His mother had left him a breakfast tray, which was to say that she’d put together a new Snappiflakes packet, a spoon, a bowl and a note saying ‘Milk in Fridge’. She’d also put her office phone number on the bottom of the note. He knew what it was anyway, but sometimes she used the phone number like other people would use an Elastoplast.

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

  He wandered aimlessly through the rooms. There was never anything any good on television in the middle of the day. It was all women talking to one another on sofas. He sneaked a look out into the road, just in case there were half-mile-long rocket-exhaust burns. And then he went back upstairs and sat and stared at the 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 people would be at school or at least keeping a low profile somewhere. Johnny wasn’t quite certain about game time and real time, but maybe the attacks stopped when people had to go to school? But no, there were probably people playing it in America or Australia or somewhere.

  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 out there. Or in there. Or in here.

  The Captain was stupid not to fire back.

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

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

  Only You Can Save Mankind.

  If Not You, Who Else?

  He blinked. The message had scrolled off the top of the screen. He couldn’t have imagined that extra last line . . . could he?

  And then the same old stars.

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

  He glanced at the clock. It was just gone four o’clock. People would be home from school now. They’d be watching Cobbers and She’ll Be Apples and Moonee Ponds. Bigmac would be watching with his mouth open at his brother’s. Wobbler would be watching while trying to rob some other poor computer games writer of his just rewards. Yo-less probably wouldn’t be paying much attention, exactly; it’d just be on while he did his homework. Yo-less always did his homework when he got home from school and didn’t pay attention to anything else until it had been finished to 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 decision. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but he’d made it. So he had to see it through. Whatever it was.

  He went to the bathroom and had a go with the thermometer. It was an electronic one that his mother had bought 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 Picnic Table. Even the thing for getting fluff out of socks.

  ‘Away with Not Being Able to Know What the Time is All the Time Blues,’ said Johnny vaguely, and stuck the thermometer in his mouth for the required twenty seconds.

  His temperature was 16:04°.

  No wonder he f
elt cold.

  He went back to bed with the thermometer still in his mouth and looked at the screen again.

  Still just stars.

  The rest of them would probably be down at the mall now, unless Yo-less was trying for an A+ with his homework. Hanging out. Waiting for another day to end.

  He squinted at the thermometer. It read 16:07°.

  Still nothing but stars on the screen . . .

  Chapter 6

  Chicken Lumps In Space

  He woke up. The familiar smell of the starship tickled his nose. He cast his eyes over the control panel. He was getting a bit more familiar with it now.

  Right. So he was back in real life again. When he got back to . . . when he got back to . . . He’d have to have a word with the medics about this odd recurring dream that he was a boy in—

  No! he thought. I’m me! Not a pilot in a computer game! If I start thinking like that then I’ll really die! Got to take charge!

  Then he noticed the other ships on the screen. He was still a long way from the fleet, of course. But there were 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 seemed to wallow rather than fly.

  He hit the Communications button. A plump face appeared 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 on the control thingy, I’m flying a Class Three Light Tanker. Wow! Is it normally like this inside your head?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Johnny. By the main communication screen was another switch saying ‘Conference Facility’. He had a feeling he knew what it did.

  Sure enough, when he pressed it Wobbler’s face drifted to the top left-hand corner of the screen. Yo-less’s face appeared in the opposite corner, with Johnny’s own head above it. The other corner stayed blank.

  Johnny tapped a button.

  ‘Bigmac?’ he said. ‘Yo-less?’

  Bigmac’s face appeared in the blank. He appeared to be wiping his mouth.

  ‘Checking the cargo?’ said Johnny sarcastically.

  ‘It’s full of hamburgers!’ said Bigmac, in a voice like a good monk who’s just arrived in heaven and found that all the sins of the flesh are allowed. ‘Boxes and boxes of hamburgers! I mean millions! With fries. And one Bucket of Chicken Lumps, it says here.’

  ‘It says on this clipboard,’ said Yo-less, ‘that I’m flying a lot of Prepared Corn and Wheat Products. Shall I go and see what they are?’

  ‘OK,’ said Johnny. ‘Then that means you’re driving the 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. ‘In Giant-Jumbo-Mega-Civilization-Sized boxes.’

  ‘Then Bigmac’d better bring his ship between you and Wobbler,’ said Johnny briskly. ‘We can’t risk a collision.’

  ‘Snap, crackle, fababababBOOM!’ said Bigmac.

  ‘Will we remember this when we wake up?’ said Wobbler.

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

  ‘OK. OK. Um. So will we remember this when he wakes up?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I think we’re only here as projections from his own subconscious mind,’ said Yo-less. ‘He’s just dreaming us.’

  ‘You mean we’re not real?’ said Bigmac.

  ‘I’m not sure if I’m real,’ said Johnny.

  ‘It feels real,’ said Wobbler. ‘Smells real, too.’

  ‘Tastes real,’ said Bigmac.

  ‘Looks real,’ said Yo-less. ‘But he’s only imagining we’re here. It’s not really us. Just the us that’s inside his head.’

  Don’t ask me, thought Johnny. You were always best at this stuff.

  ‘And I’ve just worked out, right,’ said Yo-less, ‘that if we send in the boxtops from every single packet back there we can get six thousand sets of saucepans, OK? And twenty thousand books of football stickers and fifty-seven thousand chances to win a Stylish Five-Door Ford Sierra.’

  The four ships lumbered on towards the distant fleet. Johnny’s starship could easily outdistance the tankers, so he flew in wide circles around them, watching the radar screen.

  There was an occasional zip and sizzle from Wobbler’s tanker. He was trying to take its computer apart, just in case there were any design innovations Johnny might remember when he woke up.

  Ships appeared on the screen. There was the big dot of the fleet and, around the edges of the screen, the green dots of the game players.

  A thought occurred to him.

  ‘Yo-less?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Have those things got any guns on?’

  ‘Er . . what do they look like?’

  ‘There’s probably a red button on the joystick.’

  ‘Not got one on mine.’

  ‘What about you, Wobbler? Bigmac?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Which one’s the joystick?’ said Bigmac.

  ‘It’s the thing you’re steering with.’

  ‘Yeah, wipe the mustard off and have a look,’ said Yo-less.

  ‘Nothing on it,’ said Bigmac.

  Unarmed, thought Johnny. And slow. One hit with a missile and Wobbler is sitting inside the biggest cheese in the universe. What happens to people in my dream?

  Why does it always go wrong?

  ‘I’ll just go on ahead,’ he said, and pressed the Fast button.

  There were three players attacking the ScreeWee fleet. It soon became two; Johnny had one in his sights all the way in, curving away through the smoke-ring of the explosion and heading for the next attacker so fast that he was only just behind his own missile.

  It was going after the Captain’s ship, and the player wasn’t paying attention to his radar. Another explosion, already behind Johnny as he looked for the third player.

  Johnny realized he wasn’t thinking about it. His eyes and hands were doing all the work. He was just watching from inside.

  The third player had spotted the tankers. It saw him, turned and actually managed to get some shots away.

  Oh, no. Johnny’s mind whirred like a machine, judging speed and distance . . .

  He felt the ship buck under him, but he held it steady until the crosshairs merged.

  Then he pressed his thumb down until a beeping sound told him he hadn’t got anything more to fire.

  After a while the red mist cleared. He found thoughts slinking back into his mind again. They moved slowly, uncertain of where they were, like people drifting back into a bombed city, picking through rubble, trying to find the old familiar shapes.

  There was a metallic taste in his mouth. His elbow ached – he must have banged it on something during the turn.

  He thought: No wonder we make rules. The Captain thinks it’s strange, but we don’t. We know what we’d be like if we didn’t have rules.

  A light flashed by the communication screen. Someone wanted to talk to him. He flicked a switch.

  The face of the Captain appeared.

  ‘Ah, Johnny. What an efficient technique.’

  ‘Yes. But I had to—’

  ‘Of course. And I see you have brought some friends.’

  ‘You said you needed food.’

  ‘Even more so now. That last attack was severe.’

  ‘Aren’t you firing at all?’

  ‘No. We have surrendered, I remind you. Besides, we must not stop. Some of us at least will reach the Border.’

  ‘Border?’ said Johnny. ‘I thought you were going to a planet.’

  ‘We must cross the Border first. Beyond the Border, we are safe. Even you cannot follow us. If we fight, all of us die. If we run, some of us live.’

  ‘I don’t think humans can t
hink like that,’ said Johnny. He glanced out of the cockpit. The tankers were getting nearer.

  ‘You are mammals. Fast. Hot-blooded. We are amphibians. Cold-blooded. Slow. Logical. Some of us will get across. We breed fast. To us, it makes sense. To me, it makes sense.’

  The Captain’s image moved to a corner of the screen. Wobbler, Bigmac and Yo-less appeared in the other three quarters.

  ‘That was brilliant shooting,’ said Bigmac. ‘When I’m in the army—’

  ‘There’s a frog on my screen,’ said Wobbler.

  ‘It’s . . . she’s the Captain,’ said Johnny.

  ‘A woman in charge?’ said Yo-less.

  ‘No wonder the aliens always lose,’ said Wobbler. ‘You should see the side of my mum’s car.’

  ‘Um. She can hear you, I think. Don’t use sexist language,’ said Johnny

  The Captain smiled.

  ‘I invite your comrades to unload their welcome cargoes,’ she said.

  They found out how to do it, eventually. The whole of the middle of the tankers came away as one unit. Small ScreeWee ships, not much more than a seat and a pilot’s bubble and a motor, nudged them into the holds of the biggest ships. Without them, the tankers were just a cockpit and engine and a big empty network of girders.

  Johnny watched the tank from Yo-less’s ship drift gently through the hatch of the Captain’s ship.

  ‘Er . . . if when you, you know . . . you’re pouring them out of the packet,’ he said, ‘and you sort of find something plastic falls into your bowl . . . well, it’s just a joke. It’s not on purpose.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘If you save all the box tops you could probably win a Ford Sierra,’ said Yo-less. There was a slight tremble in his voice as he tried to sound like someone who talked to aliens every day. ‘You could get your photo in Competitor’s Journal,’ he added.

  ‘That would be very useful. Some of the corridors in this ship are very long.’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ said Bigmac. ‘He’d – she’d never get the spares.’

  ‘Really? In that case we shall have to go for the six thousand sets of saucepans,’ said the Captain.

  ‘How do we get back?’ said Wobbler.