Only You Can Save Mankind

'We've got to get this off,' he said. 'Before some- thing dreadful happens.'

'We are imprisoned,' said the Captain. 'What more can happen that is dreadful?'

'Have you ever heard the name ... Sigourney?' said Johnny cautiously.

'No. But it sounds a lovely name,' said the Captain. 'Who is this Sigourney?'

'Well, if she can dream her way here as well, then there's going to be trouble. You should see the pictures she's got on her walls.'

'What of?'

'Um. Aliens,' said Johnny.

'She takes a very close interest in alien races?' said the Captain happily.

'Um. Yes.' The mere thought of her arrival made him pull urgently at the grille. 'Um. There's some- thing on the inside ... and I can't quite get my hand through . .

The Captain watched him with interest.

'Something like wingnuts,' grunted Johnny.

'This is very instructive,' said the Captain, peering over his shoulder.

'I can't get a grip!'

'You wish to turn them?'

'Yes!'

The Captain waddled over to the table and opened the bird cage. Both of the birds hopped out on to her hand. The Captain said a few words in ScreeWee; the birds fluttered past Johnny's head, squeezed through the mesh, and disappeared. After a second or two he heard the squeak-squeak of nuts being undone.

'What were they?' he said.

'Chee,' said the Captain. 'Mouth birds. You under- stand?' She opened her mouth, revealing several rows of yellow teeth. 'For hygiene?'

'Living toothbrushes?'

'We have always had them. They are... traditional. Very intelligent. Bred for it, you know. Clever things. They understand several words of ScreeWee.'

The squeaking went on. There was a clonk, and a nut rolled through the mesh.

The panel fell into the room

Johnny looked at the hole.

'0-kay,' he said uncertainly. 'You don't know where it goes, do you?'

'No. There are ventilation shafts all over the ship. Will you lead the way?'

'Um-'

'I would be happy for you to lead the way,' said the Captain.

Johnny stood on the bed and crawled into the hole. It went a little way and then opened on to a bigger shaft.

'All over the ship?' he said.

'Yes.'

Johnny paused for a moment. He'd never liked nar- row dark spaces.

'Oh. Right,' he said.

Kirsty's mother put down the phone.

'There's no-one answering,' she said.

'I think he said his father works late and his mother sometimes works in the evening,' said Kirsty. 'Any- way, the doctor said he's basically all right, didn't she? He's just run down, she said. What was the stuff she gave him?'

'She said it'd make him sleep. He's not getting enough sleep. Twelve-year-old boys need a lot of sleep.'

'I know this one does,' said Kirsty.

'And you said he's not eating properly. Where did you meet him, anyway?'

'Um,' Kirsty began, and then smiled to herself. 'Out and about.'

Kirsty's mother looked worried.

'Are you sure he's all there?'

'He's all there,' said Kirsty, climbing the stairs. 'I'm not sure that he's all here, but he's certainly all there.'

She opened the door of the spare room and looked in. Johnny was fast asleep in a pair of her brother's pyjamas. He looked very young. It's amazing how young twelve is, when you're thirteen.

Then she went to her own bedroom, got ready for bed, and slid between the sheets.

It was pretty early. It had been a busy evening.

He was a loser. You could tell. He dressed like a loser. A ditherer. Someone who said 'um' a lot, and went through life trying not to be noticed.

She'd never done that. She'd always gone through life as if there was a big red arrow above the planet, indicating precisely where she was.

On the other hand, he tried so hard

She'd bet he'd cried when ET died.

She pushed herself up on one elbow and stared at the movie posters.

Trying wasn't the point.

You had to win. What good was anything if you didn't win?

'Stuck? You're an alien,' said Johnny. 'Aliens don't get stuck in air ducts. It's practically a well-known fact.'

He backed into a side tunnel, and turned around. 'I am sorry. It occurs to me that possibly I am the wrong type of alien,' said the Captain. 'I can go backwards, but I am forwardly disadvantaged.'

'OK. Back up to that second junction we passed,' said Johnny. 'We're lost, anyway.

'No,' said the Captain, 'I know where we are. It says here this is junction ~ ~ e .'

'Do you know where that is?'

'No.'

'I saw a film where there was an alien crawling around inside a spaceship's air ducts and it could come out wherever it liked,' said Johnny reproachfully.

'Doubtless it had a map,' said the Captain.

Johnny crawled around a corner and found . . another grille.

There didn't seem to be any activity on the other side of it. He unscrewed the nuts and let it fall on to the floor.

There was a corridor. He dropped into it, then turned and helped the Captain through. ScreeWee might have descended from crocodiles, but crocodiles preferred sandbanks. They weren't very good at crawl- ing through narrow spaces.

Her skin felt cold and dry, like silk.

There were no other ScreeWee around.

'They're probably at battle stations,' said Johnny.

'We're always at battle stations,' said the Captain bitterly, brushing dust off her scales. 'This is corridor ~. Now we must get to the bridge, yes?'

'Won't they just lock you up again?' said Johnny.

'I think not. Disobedience to properly constituted authority does not come easily to us. The Gunnery Officer is very ... persuasive. But once they see that I am free again, they will give in. At least,' the Captain added, 'most of them will. The Gunnery Officer may prove difficult. He dreams of grandeur.'

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 shooting again, won't they? They'll soon see what he is leading them 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 domesticated beast of burden capable of simple instruction but also traditionally foul-tempered, it is easier to stay on rather than dismount; equally, better to trust yourself to fate than risk attack from the sure-footed JEEyee, which will easily outrun a ScreeWee on foot. Of course, it is a little snappier in our language.'

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

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

'Can you talk to her?'

'She is under orders. I fear that I will only be allowed to say "Aaargh!' said the Captain. 'But feel free to make 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 a melted-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 an innocent-looking way, and smiled.

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

The guard raised the gun.

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

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