Free Only You Can Save Mankind by Terry Pratchett

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 Taurus,” 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 spare parts.”
    “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.
    “How did you get here?”
    Wobbler frowned.
    “How did we get here?” he said. “One minute I was…was…and then here I was. Here we were.”
    “Come to that, where did all the milk and burgers come from?” said Bigmac.
    “It’s all right,” said Yo-less. “I told you. We’re not really here anyway. We’re just anxiety projections. I read about it in a book.”
    “That’s a relief, then,” said Wobbler. “That’s worth knowing when you’re a billion miles out in space. Anyway…so how do we get back?”
    “I don’t know,” said Johnny. “I generally do it by dying.”
    “Is there some other way?” said Yo-less, after a long, thoughtful pause.
    “I don’t think there is for me. This is game space. You have to die to get out,” said Johnny. “I think you can probably just fly back. I’m not definitely sure any harm can come to you. You’re not playing…in your heads, I mean.”
    “Well—” Wobbler began.
    “But I’d go soon, if I was you,” said Johnny. “Before some more players arrive.”
    “We’d stay and help,” said Wobbler, “but there’s no guns on these things, you see.”
    He sounded worried.
    “Yeah. Silly of me not to have dreamed of any,” said Johnny kindly.
    “Yo-less might be right and we’re just stuff in your head,” said Wobbler. “But even people in dreams don’t want to die, I expect.”
    “Right.”
    “You going to be in school tomorrow?”
    “Might be.”
    “Right. Well, then…chow.”
    “See you.”
    “You hang in there, right, Johnny?” said Yo-less anxiously.
    “I’ll try to.”
    “Yeah, give them aliens hell, my man!” said Bigmac, as the tankers turned.
    Johnny could hear them still talking as the three ships accelerated away.
    “That was a foe-par, Bigmac. Johnny’s on the aliens’ side!”
    “What? You mean they’re on our side?”
    “No, they’re on their side. And so is he.”
    “Whose side are we on, then?”
    “We’re on his side.”
    “Oh. Right. Er. Yo-less?”
    “What?”
    “So who’s on our side?”
    “Eh? He is, I suppose.”
    “So is there anyone on the other side?”
    The ships became dots on the radar, and then vanished off the edge of the screen.
    Where to, Johnny had no idea.
    I may have wished them here, or dreamed them, or something. But I mustn’t do it again. Maybe they’re not really here, but I don’t want to see my friends die. I don’t want to see anybody die.
    At least I’m on my side.
    He scanned the sky. After a while the Captain said: “You are not leaving?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Until you die, you mean.”
    Johnny shrugged.
    “It’s the only way out,” he said. “Fight until you die. That’s how all games go. You just hope you can get a bit farther each time.”
    There were still no more attackers on the screen. The fleet looked as if it wasn’t moving, but it had built up quite a speed. Every second was taking it farther from game space. Every second meant that fewer and fewer players would have the patience or determination to go on looking for it.
    He helped himself to some of the horrible nourishing soup from its spigot.
    “Johnny?”
    “Yes?”
    “I believe I upset you some time ago by suggesting that humans are bloodthirsty and dangerous.”
    “Well. Yes. A bit.”
    “In that case…I would like to say…I am grateful.”
    “I don’t