Free Only You Can Save Mankind by Terry Pratchett Page A

understand.”
    “That you are on our side.”
    “Yes, but I’m not bloodthirsty.”
    “Then I think perhaps a little while ago someone else must have been flying your ship?”
    “No. It’s hard to explain it to you,” said Johnny. First of all, he’d have to be able to explain it to himself.
    “Shall I embark upon a less troubling topic of conversation?”
    “You don’t have to,” said Johnny. “I mean, you’re in charge. You must have things to do.”
    “Oh, spaceships fly themselves,” said the Captain. “They keep going until they hit things. There is little to do. Tend the wounded and so on. I seldom have a chance to talk to humans. So…What is sexist?”
    “What?”
    “It was a word you used.”
    “Oh, that. It just means you should treat people as people and, you know…not just assume girls can’t do stuff. We got a talk about it at school. There’s lots of stuff most girls can’t do, but you’ve got to pretend they can, so that more of them will. That’s all of it, really.”
    “Presumably there’s, uh, stuff boys can’t do?”
    “Oh, yeah. But that’s just girls’ stuff,” said Johnny. “Anyway, some girls go and become engineers and things, so they can do proper stuff if they want.”
    “Transcend the limitations of their sex. Outdo the other sex, even. Yes. It is much the same with us. Some individuals show an awe-inspiring desire to succeed, to make a career in a field not traditionally considered to be appropriate to their gender.”
    “You, you mean,” said Johnny.
    “I was referring to the Gunnery Officer.”
    “But he’s a man—I mean, a male.”
    “Yes. Traditionally, ScreeWee warriors are female. They are more inclined to fight. Our ancestors used to have to fight to protect their breeding pond. The males do not do battle. But in his case—”
    A speck appeared on the radar.
    Johnny put down his cup and watched it carefully.
    Normally, players headed straight for the fleet. This one didn’t. It hovered right on the edge of the screen and stayed there, keeping pace with the ScreeWee ships.
    After a while, another dot appeared from the same direction, and kept on coming.
    This one at least looked like just another player.
    There was a nasty equation at the back of Johnny’s mind. It concerned missiles. There were the six missiles per level in Only You Can Save Mankind. Once you’d fired them, that was it. So the longer he stayed alive, the less he had to fight with. But all the attacking players would have six missiles each. He’d only got four now. When they were gone, it’d just be guns. One missile in the right place would blow him up. Losing was kind of built in, in the circumstances.
    The attacker came on. But Johnny kept finding his gaze creeping to the dot at the edge of the screen. Somehow it had a watchful look, like a shark trailing a leaky airbed.
    He switched on the communicator.
    “Attacking ship! Attacking ship! Stop now!”
    They can’t speak, Johnny thought. They’re only a player—they’re not in the game. They can’t speak and they can’t listen.
    He found he’d automatically targeted a missile on the approaching dot. But that couldn’t be the only way. Sooner or later you had to talk, even if it was only because you’d run out of things to throw.
    The attacker fired a missile. It streaked past Johnny and away, heading on into empty space.
    Not real, Johnny thought. You have to think they’re not real. Otherwise you can’t do it.
    “Attacking ship! This is your last chance! Look, I mean it!”
    He pressed the button. The ship juddered slightly as a missile took off. The attacker was moving fast. So was the missile. They met and became an expanding red cloud. It drifted around Johnny’s ship like a smoke ring.
    Someone, somewhere, was blinking at their screen and probably swearing. He hoped.
    The dot was still on the edge of the screen. It was irritating him, like an itch in a place he couldn’t scratch. Because that wasn’t how