Funnily enough, it wasn't much good for maths.He'd always had trouble with algebra, because theywouldn't let you get away with 'What it feels like tobe x2'. But he had an arrangement with Bigmac aboutthat, because Bigmac got the same feeling when helooked at an essay project as Johnny did when he wasfaced with a quadratic equation. Anyway, it didn'tmatter 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, oractually nailing a teacher to anything, that you got leftalone.

But mainly the computer was good for games. If youturned the volume control up, you didn't have to hearthe shouting.

The ScreeWee mother ship was in uproar. There wasstill 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 thejourney.

The Captain sat back in her chair on the huge,shadowy bridge. She was yellow under the eyes, a suresign of lack of sleep. So much to be done ... half thefighters were damaged, and the main ships were in nonetoo good condition, and there was hardly any room andcertainly no food for all the survivors they were takingon 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, andthen we die. That's how it goes.

'Then we die gloriously!'

'There's an important word in that sentence,' said theCaptain. '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