DREAMER IN SPACE by Richard Hart
an amazing space puppet adventure

 DREAMER IN SPACE The Story

DREAMER is a character who has a lot of curiosity; he combines the qualities of an adventurer with those of a technological wizard. Given Dreamer’s passion for astronomy his home in the outback is a perfect location. There is plenty of space to launch a spaceship and the sky is clear for telescope observations. Also, there are no neighbours for him to annoy with his rocket building and launching.

Beneath the house is Dreamer’s spaceship hanger and his launch pad is nearby. The ship uses a new means of propulsion aided by a ‘gravity manipulation device’, secretly invented by Dreamer. All this, however, is not enough to solve the problem of the time it takes to travel within our solar system, let alone beyond it! But it does mean that Dreamer’s spaceship can be relatively small and not produce massive heat, flame and smoke.

Dreamer has optical and other types of telescopes, all synchronised by an elaborate computer which controls tracking, collects information and also beams out signals as well, (Dreamer’s message to the universe ). This is also part of the world-wide S.E.T.I, (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), programme, where participants around the world listen to and analyse the background radiation of the universe to see if there are signs of radio or television signals leaking into space from very distant civilisations.

For some weeks, Dreamer’s telescopes have been routinely focused on a region close to one of Jupiter's moons, the moon Io. Some very strong and changing forces are causing more than usual volcanic activity on this moon. One evening, the whole of Dreamer’s system goes into ‘exciting discovery mode’. A wormhole*, large enough for Dreamer’s spaceship to enter, has stabilised near Io, (one of Jupiter's moons) and that's not all: an alien video image is coming through it !
(* Wormholes: exist only in theory at this time, but by manipulation of huge gravitational forces, space can be bent to form shortcut tunnels from one place in the universe to another, reducing travel time by millions of years. )
 

A very excited Dreamer hurriedly prepares for space travel, descends to the subterranean spaceship hanger and takes off on an extraordinary voyage of exploration. At last, here is a chance for Dreamer to travel way beyond our solar system.

The journey to Jupiter takes many weeks, although Dreamer’s spacecraft is very fast. So Dreamer spends most of the time in a hibernation bed before reaching the moon, Io. During a brief exploration of Io, there is another volcanic eruption, forcing Dreamer to make a rapid escape. The gravity of Io is very low, like our moon; walking is impossible. Dreamer has to hop around and he can leap very high. Also, Io is extremely cold, so much so that gases on earth are liquids there. The volcanic lava is a liquid gas, shooting up hundreds of kilometres .

Due to very accurate navigation, the spaceship reaches the wormhole and enters. After a very strange journey the ship soon pops out into another solar system which has many planets, some much closer together than in ours.

There are two or more planets showing signs of life. Dreamer lands on a planet which is mostly green, with large areas of black water, small islands and floating rainforests. Periods between rain are short. Dreamer observes some strange creatures gathering food or eggs between the rainstorms.

While exploring this very different solar system, the spaceship lands on one of a cluster of large, growing, (as in living), space stations. It looks like a huge spherical tree with branches and lifelike extensions, which probably collect energy from the sun. After meeting some creatures inside, Dreamer learns there is an even stranger one that is eating the ‘leaves’, causing problems for the inhabitants. Dreamer attempts to lure it away, narrowly avoiding being destroyed. The creature eats half of the spaceship before Dreamer can escape in the front section, which floats aimlessly in space.

Eventually, Dreamer enters the red gassy atmosphere of another planet very close by. It is like the deep sea, full of living things. Then an alien spacecraft appears ‘fishing’ with a strange net. Dreamer is captured and taken down to the surface of this weird planet. The alien is of the same type whose image was seen through the wormhole on Dreamer’s big TV monitor.

The alien initially thinks it has caught some food before it discovers a very scared and hungry Dreamer. Fortunately, it is highly intelligent and compassionate; it offers food and help. To aid communication, which is difficult without a common language, the alien shows Dreamer a map of the planets nearby and the location of the wormhole. It turns out that the alien had received Dreamer’s message through the same wormhole, but had only been able to work out some of it. Curious to see Earth, the alien offers Dreamer passage home in its own spacecraft and provides some of its own extraordinary technology to take with them to Earth. The story ends when they return to Earth - and Dreamer has to keep up with a very curious and excited alien who wants to see everything.

The outcome of this adventure is that Dreamer and the alien (through their efforts to communicate and because they are interested in what is different about each other) both benefit hugely by co-operation and they advance their respective technologies enormously: Dreamer’s ‘gravity manipulation device’ was more advanced than the alien’s and helped the alien; the alien’s spaceship was more advanced than Dreamer’s, and so on . They learned how to manipulate the wormhole and travel easily to other parts of the universe.