Only You Can Save Mankind Read Free

He may be the One.”
    The Gunnery Officer placed his upper two front hands on the desk and glared at her.
    “Well,” he said, “I’ve talked to the other officers. I don’t believe in legends. When the full enormity of what you have done is understood, you will be relieved of your command!”
    She turned tired eyes toward him.
    “Good,” she said. “But right now, I am Captain. I am responsible. Do you understand? Have you got the faintest idea of what that means? Now…go!”
    He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t disobey. I can have him shot, she thought. It’d be a good idea. Bound to save trouble later on. It’ll be No. 235 on the list of Things to Do….
    She turned back to continue staring at the stars outside, on the huge screen that filled one wall.
    The enemy ship still hung there.
    What kind of person is it? she thought. Despicable though they are, there’s so few of them. But they keep coming back! What’s their secret?
    But you can be sure of one thing. They surely only send their bravest and their best.
     
     
    The advantage of the Trying Times was that helping yourself from the fridge was OK. There didn’t seem to be any proper mealtimes anymore in any case. Or any real cooking.
    Johnny made himself spaghetti and baked beans. There was no sound from the living room, although the TV was on.
    Then he watched a bit of television in his room. He’d been given the old one when they got the new one. It wasn’t very big, and you had to get up and walk over to it every time you wanted to change channels or the volume or whatever, but these were Trying Times.
    There was a film on the news showing some missiles streaking over some city. It was quite good.
    Then he went to bed.
     
     
    He was not entirely surprised to wake up at the controls of a starfighter.
    It had been like that with Captain Zoom. You couldn’t get it out of your head. After an evening’s concentrated playing, you were climbing ladders and dodging laser-zap bolts all night.
    It was a pretty good dream, even so. He could feel the seat under him. And the cabin smelled of hot oil and overheated plastic and unwashed people.
    It looked pretty much like the one he saw on the screen every evening, except that there was a thin film of grease and dirt over everything. But there was the radar screen, and the weapons console, and the joystick…
    Hey, much better than the computer! The cabin was full of noises—the click and whirr of fans, the hum and buzz of instruments.
    And better graphics. You get much better graphics in your dreams.
    The ScreeWee fleet hung in the ai—hung in space in front of him.
    Wow!
    Although dreams ought to be a bit more exciting. You got chased in dreams. Things happened to you. Sitting in the cockpit of a starfighter bristling with weapons was fun, but things ought to happen….
    He wondered if he should launch a missile or something…. No, hang on, they’d surrendered. And there was that thing about safe-conduct.
    His hands wandered over the switches in front of him. They were a bit different from the computer keyboard, but this one—
    “Are you receiving me?”
    The face of the Captain appeared on the communications screen.
    “Yes?” said Johnny.
    “We are ready.”
    “Ready?” said Johnny. “What for?”
    “Lead the way,” said the Captain. The voice came out of a grille beside the screen. It must be being translated by something, Johnny thought. I shouldn’t think giant newts speak English.
    “Where to?” he said. “Where are we going?”
    “Earth.”
    “Earth? Hang on! That’s where I live! People can get into serious trouble showing huge alien fleets where they live!”
    The grille hummed and buzzed for a while. Then the Captain said: “Apology. That is a direct translation. We call the planet that is our home ‘Earth.’ When I speak in ScreeWee, your computer finds the word in your language that means the same thing. The actual word in ScreeWee sounds like…” There was a noise like