Terry Pratchett - Johnny 1 - Only You Can Save Mankind

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Terry Pratchett - Only You Can Save Mankind
(v1.3)
Revision 1.3
Brought to you by Books2Bytes
The Mighty ScreeWeeTM Empire is
poised to attack Earth!
Our battleships have been
destroyed in a sneak raid!
Nothing can stand between Earth
and the terrible vengeance of the
ScreeWeeTM!
But there is one starship left...
end out of the mists of time comes
one warrior, one fighter who Is the
last Hope of Civilizatlon!
YOU!
YOU are the Savior of Civilization.
You are all that stands between
your world and Certain Oblivion.
You are the Last Mope.
Only You Can Save Mankind!TM
Action-Packed with New Features!
Just like the Real Thing! Full.Color
Sound and Slam.VectorTM Graphics!
Sulteble for 1CM PC, Atari. Amiga. Pineapple,
Ametrad, Nintendo. Actual games shots taken from a
Version YOU haven't bought.
Copyright IEEE Qobi Software, 7234 W., Agharta
Drive, Shambaia, Tibet. All Rights Reserved. All
company names and product names are regletered
trademarks or trademarks of their respective
compeniee.
The names ScreeWee, Empire and Mankind are
trademarks of QobI Software 1992.
1.
The Hero With A Thousand
Extra Lives
Johnny bit his lip, and concentrated.
Right. Come in quick, let a missile target itself- beep
beep beep beebeebeebeeb - on the first fighter, fire the
missile - thwutnp - empty the guns at the fighter -
fplatfplatfplatfplat - hit fighter No. 2 and take out its
shields with the laser - bwizzle - while the missile -
pwwosh - takes out fighter No. 1, dive, switch guns,
rake fighter No.3 as it turns fplatfplatfplat - pick up
fighter No. 2 in the sights again on the upcurve, let go
a missile - thwump - and rake it with -
Fwit fwit fwit.
Fighter No. 4! It always came in last, but if you went
after it first the others would have time to turn and
you'd end up in the sights of three of them.
He'd died six times already. And it was only five
o'clock.
His hands flew over the keyboard. Stars roared past
as he accelerated out of the melee. It'd leave him short
of fuel, but by the time they caught up the shields
would be back and he'd be ready, and two of them
would already have taken damage, and . . . here they
come . . . missiles away, wow, lucky hit on the first
one, die die die!, red fireball - swsssh - take shield loss
while concentrating fire on the next one - swsssh - and
now the last one was running, but he could outrun it,
hit the accelerator - ggrrRRRSSHHH - and just keep
it in his sights while he poured shot after shot into -
swssh.Ah!
The huge bulk of their capital ship was in the corner
of the screen. Level 10, here we come . . . careful,
careful. . . there were no more ships now, so all he had
to do was keep out of its range and then sweep in and
We wish to talk.
Johnny blinked at the message on the screen.
We wish to talk.
The ship roared by - eeey000wwwnn. He reached out
for the throttle key and slowed himself down, and then
turned and got the big red shape in his sights again.
We wish to talk.
His finger hovered on the Fire button. Then, with-
out really looking, he moved it over to the keyboard.
and pressed Pause.
Then he read the manual.
Only You Can Save Mankind, it said on the cover.
'Full Sound and Graphics. The Ultimate Game.'
A ScreeWee heavy cruiser, it said on page 17, could
be taken out with seventy-six laser shots. Once you'd
cleared the fighter escort and found a handy spot where
the ScreeWee's guns couldn't get you, it was just a
matter of time.
We wish to talk.
Even with the Pause on, the message still flashed on
the screen.
There was nothing in the manual about messages.
Johnny riffled through the pages. It must be one of the
New Features the game was Packed With.
He put down the book, put his hands on the
keys and cautiously tapped out: Die, alein scum!
No! We do not wish to die! We wish to talk!
It wasn't supposed to be like this, was it?
Wobbler Johnson, who'd given him the disc and
photocopied the manual on his dad's copier, had said
that once you'd completed level 10 you got given an
extra 10,000 points and the Scroll of Valour and moved
on to the Arcturus Sector, where there were different
ships and more of them.
Johnny wanted the Scroll of Valour.
Johnny fired the laser one more time. Swsssh. He
didn't really know why. It was just because you had the
joystick and there was the Fire button and that was
what it was for.
After all, there wasn't a Don't Fire button.
We Surrender! PLEASE!
He reached over and, very carefully, pressed the Save
Game button. The computer whined and clicked, and
then was silent.
He didn't play again the whole evening. He did his
homework.
It was Geography. You had to colour in Great
Britain and put a dot on the map of the world where
you thought it was.
The ScreeWee captain thumped her desk with one of
her forelegs.
'What?'
The First Officer swallowed, and tried to keep her
tail held at a respectful angle.
'He just vanished again, ma'am,' she said.
'But did he accept?'
'No, ma'am.'
The Captain drummed the fingers of three hands on
the table. She looked slightly like a newt but mainly like
an alligator.
'But we didn't fire on him!'
'No, ma'am.'
'And you sent my message?'
'Yes, ma am.'
'And every time we've killed him, he comes back. . .'
He caught up with Wobbler in Break.
Wobbler was the kind of boy who's always picked
last when you had to pick teams, although that was all
right at the moment as the PE teacher didn't believe in
teams because they encouraged competition.
He wobbled. It was glandular, he said. He wobbled
especially when he ran. Bits of Wobbler headed in
various directions; it was only on average that he was
running in any particular direction.
But he was good at games. They just weren't the
ones that people thought you ought to be good at.
If ever there was an Inter-Schools First-One-To-
Break-The-Unbreakable-Copy-Protection-on-Galactic-
Thrusters, Wobbler wouldn't just be in the team, he'd
be picking the team.
'Yo, Wobbler,' said Johnny.
'It's not cool to say Yo any more,' said Wobbler.
'Is it rad to say cool?' said Johnny.
'Cool's always cool. And no-one says rad any more,
either.'
Wobbler looked around conspiratorially and then
fished a package from his bag.
'This is cool. Have a go at this.'
'What is it?' said Johnny.
'I cracked Fighter Star Terafiomber,' said Wobbler.
'Only don't tell anyone, right? Just type FSB. It's not
much good, really. The space bar drops the bombs,
and . . . well . . . just press the keys, you'll see what
they do. .
'Listen.. . you know Only You Can Save Mankind?'
'Still playing that, are you?'
'You didn't, you know, do anything to it, did you?
Um? Before you gave me a copy?'
'No. It wasn't even protected. Didn't have to do
anything except copy the manual. Why?'
'You did play it, didn't you?'
'A bit.' Wobbler only played games once. Wobbler
could watch a game for a couple of minutes, and then
pick up the joystick and get top score. And then never
play it again.
'Nothing . . . funny . . . happened?'
'Like what?' said Wobbler.
'Like . . .' Johnny hesitated. He could tell Wobbler,
and then Wobbler would laugh, or not believe him, or
say it was just some bug or something, some kind of
trick. Or a virus. Wobbler had discs full of computer
viruses. He didn't do anything with them. He just col-
lected them, like stamps or something.
He could tell Wobbler, and then somehow it
wouldn't be real.
'Oh, you know . . . funny.'
'Like what?'
'Weird. Um. Lifelike, I suppose.
'It's sposed to be. Just like the real thing, it says. I
hope you've read the manual properly. My dad spent a
whole coffee break copying that.'
Johnny gave a sickly grin.
'Yes. Right. Better read it, then. Thanks for Star
Fighter Pilot-'
'TeraBomber. My dad brought me back Alabama
Smith and the Jewels of Fate from the States. You can
have a copy if you give me the disc back.'
'Right,' said Johnny.
'It's OK.'
'Right,' said Johnny.
He never had the heart to tell Wobbler that he didn't
play half the games Wobbler passed on. You couldn't.
Not if you wanted time to sleep and eat meals. But that
was all right because Wobbler never asked. As far
as Wobbler was concerned, computer games weren't
there for playing. They were for breaking into, rewrit-
ing so that you got extra lives or whatever, and then
copying and giving away to everyone.
Basically, there were two sides to the world. There
was the entire computer games software industry
engaged in a tremendous effort to stamp out piracy,
and there was Wobbler. Currently, Wobbler was in
front.'Did you do my History?' said Wobbler.
'Here,' said Johnny. ' "What it was like to be a
peasant during the English Civil War." Three pages.'
'Thanks,' said Wobbler. 'That was quick.'
'Oh, in Geog last term we had to do one about What
it's like being a peasant in Bolivig. I just got rid of the
llamas and put in stuff about kings having their heads
chopped off. You have to bung in that kind of stuff,
and then you just have to keep complaining about the
weather and the crops and you can't go wrong, in
peasant essays.
Johnny lay on his bed reading Only You Can Save
Mankind.
He could just about remember the days when you
could still get games where the instructions consisted of
something that said, 'Press < for left and > for right
and Fire for fire.'
But now you had to read a whole little book which
was all about the game. It was really the manual, but
they called it 'The Novel'.
Partly it was an anti-Wobbler thing. Someone in
America or somewhere thought it was dead clever to
make the game ask you little questions, like 'What's the
first word on line 23 on page 19 of the manual?' and
then reset the machine if you didn't answer them right,
so they'd obviously never heard of Wobbler's dad's
office's photocopier.
So there was this book. The ScreeWee had turned up
out of nowhere and bombed some planets with humans
on them. Nearly all the starships had been blown up.
So there was only this one left, the experimental one.
It was all that stood against the ScreeWee hordes. And
only you . . . that is to say John Maxwell, aged twelve,
in between the time you get home from school and get
something to eat and do your homework . . . can save
mankind.
Nowhere did it say what you were supposed to do
if the ScreeWee hordes didn't want to fight.
He switched on the computer, and pressed the Load
Game key.
There was the ship again, right in the middle of his
sights.
He picked up the joystick thoughtfully.
There was an immediate message on the screen.
Well, not exactly a message. More a picture. Half a
dozen little egg-shaped blobs, with tails. They didn't
move. What kind of message is that? he thought
Perhaps there was a special message he ought to
send. 'Die, Creep' didn't seem to fit properly at the
moment.
He typed: Whats hpaening?
Immediately a reply appeared on the screen, in yellow
letters.
We surrender. Do not shoot See, we show you pictures of
our children.
He typed: Is this a trick WObbler?
It took a little while before the reply came.
Am not trick wobbler. We give in. No more war.
Johnny thought for a while, and then typed: Youre
not supoosed to give ni.
Want to go home.
Johnny typed: It says in the book you blue up a lot
of planets.
Lies!
Johnny stared at the screen. What he wanted to type
was: No, I mean, this cant happen, youre Aliens, you
cant not want to be shot at, no other game aliens have
ever stopped aliening across the screen, they never said
We DonT Want to Go.
And then he thought: they never had the chance.
They couldn't.
But games are a lot better now.
They never made things like the old MegaZoids
seem real, with stories about them and Full-Colour
Graphics.
This is probably that Virtual Reality they're always
talking about on the television.
He typed: It is only a game, after all.
What is a game?
He typed: Who ARE you?
The screen flickered. Something a bit like a newt but
more like an alligator looked back at him.
I am the Captain, said the yellow letters. Do not
shoot!Johnny typed: I shoot at you and you shoto at me.
That is the game.
But we die.
Johnny typed: Sometimes I die. I die a lot.
But YOU live again.
Johnny stared at the words for a moment. Then he
typed: Dont you?
No. How could this be? When we die, we die. For ever.
Johnny typed desperately: No, thats not right
because, in the first mission, theres three ships you have
to blow up before the first planet. I@ve played it lots
of times and there@s always three ships there-
Thfferent ships.
Johnny thought for a while and then typed: What
happens if I switch of tthe machine?
We do not understand the question.
This is daft, thought Johnny. It's just a very unusual
game. It's a special mission or something.
He typed: Why should I trust you?
LOOK BEHIND YOU.
Johnny sat bolt upright in his chair. Then he let him-
self swivel around, very cautiously.
Of course, there was no-one there. Why should there
be anyone there? It was a game.
The newt face had disappeared from the screen, leav-
ing the familiar picture of the inside of the starfighter.
And there was the radar screen-
covered in yellow dots.
Yellow for the enemy.
Johnny picked up the joystick and turned the star-
fighter around. The entire ScreeWee fleet was there.
Ship after ship was hanging in space behind him.
Little fighters, big cruisers, massive battleships.
If they all had him in their sights, and if they .......
He didn't want to die.
Hang on, hang on. You don't die. You just play the
game again.
This was nuts. It was time to stop it.
He typed: All right what happens now?
We want to go home.
He typed: All right no problem.
You give us safe conduct
He typed: OK yes.
The screen went blank.
And that was it? No music? No 'Congratulations,
You've Got the Highest Score'?
Just the little prompt, flashing on and off.
What did safe conduct mean, anyway?
2.
Operate Controls To Play Game
You never said to your parents, 'Hey, I really need a
computer because that way I can play Megasteroids.'
No, you said, 'I really need a computer because of
school.'
It's educational.
Anyway, there had to be a good side to the Trying
Times everyone was going through in this house. If you
hung around in your room and generally kept your
head down, stuff like computers sort of happened. It
made everyone feel better.
And it was quite useful for school sometimes. Johnny
had written 'What it felt like to be different sorts of
peasants' on it, and printed them out on the printer,
although he had to rewrite them in his handwriting
because although the school taught Keyboard Skills
and New Technology you got into trouble if you
used keyboard skills and new technology actually to do
anything.
Funnily enough, it wasn't much good for maths.
He'd always had trouble with algebra, because they
wouldn't let you get away with 'What it feels like to
be x2'. But he had an arrangement with Bigmac about
that, because Bigmac got the same feeling when he
looked at an essay project as Johnny did when he was
faced with a quadratic equation. Anyway, it didn't
matter that much. If you kept your head down,
they were generally so grateful that you were not,
e.g., causing policemen to come to the school, or
actually nailing a teacher to anything, that you got left
alone.But mainly the computer was good for games. If you
turned the volume control up, you didn't have to hear
the shouting.
The ScreeWee mother ship was in uproar. There was
still a haze of smoke in the air from the last bombard-
ment, and indistinct figures pattered back and forth,
trying to fix things up well enough to survive the
journey.
The Captain sat back in her chair on the huge,
shadowy bridge. She was yellow under the eyes, a sure
sign of lack of sleep. So much to be done . . . half the
fighters were damaged, and the main ships were in none
too good condition, and there was hardly any room and
certainly no food for all the survivors they were taking
on board.
She looked up. There was the Gunnery Officer.
'This is not a wise move,' he said.
'It is the only one I have,' said the Captain wearily.
'No! We must fight on!'
'And then we die,' said the Captain. 'We fight, and
then we die. That's how it goes.
'Then we die gloriously!'
'There's an important word in that sentence,' said the
Captain. 'And it's not the word "gloriously".'
The Gunnery Officer went light green with rage.
'He's attacked hundreds of our ships!'
'And then he stopped.'
'None of the others have,' said the Gunnery Officer.
'They're humans! You can't trust a human. They shoot
everything.'
The Captain rested her snout on one hand.
'He doesn't,' she said. 'He listened. He talked. None
of the others did. 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 towards 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 out-
side, 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 any more 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 fell
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 air, 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 wandered 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?'
'To 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
Sree Wee, your computer finds the word in your language
that means the same thing. The actual word in Scree Wee
sounds like . . .' There was a noise like someone taking
their foot out of a wet cowpat. 'I will show our home to
you.'
A red circle suddenly developed on the navigation
screen.
Johnny knew about that. You just moved a green
circle over it, the computer went binleabinleabinlea, and
you'd set your course.
They've shown me where they live.
The thought sunk in.
They trust me.
As he moved his fighter forwards, the entire alien
fleet pulled in behind him. They eclipsed the stars.
The cabin hummed and buzzed quietly to itself.
Well, at least it didn't look too hard
A green dot appeared ahead of him.
He watched it get bigger, and recognized the shape
of a starflghter, just like his.
But it was a little hard to make it out.
This was because it was half-hidden by laser bolts.
It was firing at him as it came.
And it was travelling so fast it was very nearly catch-
ing up with its own fire.
Johnny jerked the joystick and his ship rolled out of
the way as the . . . the enemy starfighter roared past and
barrelled on towards the ScreeWee ships.
The whole sky full of ScreeWee ships.
Which had surrendered to him.
But people out there were still playing the game.
'No! Listen to me! They're not fighting any more!'
The starfighter turned in a wide curve and headed
diiectly for the command ship. Johnny saw it launch a
missile. Someone sitting at a keyboard somewhere had
launched a missile.
'Listen! You've got to stop!'
It's not listening to me, he thought. You don't listen
to the enemy. The enemy's there to be shot at. That's
why it's the enemy. That's what the enemy's for.
He swung around to follow the starship, which had
slowed down. It was pouring shot after shot into the
command ship
which wasn't firing back.
Johnny stared in horror.
The ship rocked under the hail of fire. The Gunnery
Officer crawled across the shaking floor and pulled
himself up beside the Captain's chair.
'Fool! Fool! I told you this would happen! I demand
that we return fire!'
The Captain was watching the Chosen One's ship.
It hadn't moved.
'No,' she said. 'We have to give him a chance. We
must not fire on human ships.'
'A chance? How much of a chance do we have? I shall
give the order to-'
The Captain moved very fast. When her hand
stopped she was holding a gun very close to the Gun-
nery Officer's head. It was really only a ceremonial
weapon; normally ScreeWee fought only with their
claws. But its shape said very clearly that things came
out of the hole in the front end with the very definite
purpose of travelling fast through the air and then kill-
摘要：

TerryPratchett-OnlyYouCanSaveMankind(v1.3)Revision1.3BroughttoyoubyBooks2BytesTheMightyScreeWeeTMEmpireispoisedtoattackEarth!Ourbattleshipshavebeendestroyedinasneakraid!NothingcanstandbetweenEarthandtheterriblevengeanceoftheScreeWeeTM!Butthereisonestarshipleft...endoutofthemistsoftimecomesonewarrior...

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