”Wow, you know a lot Mariana. I suppose you learn a lot in school nowadays.”
“Mmm, well, we actually just read on your rocket computer.”
”Tomorrow we get to Sirius. I still haven’t found a planet of the right size moving around the star. It’s probably best that we go to bed and sleep. The seats that you are in at take-off and landing can be turned into comfortable beds. Good night.”
Less than a minute has passed before they hear Uncle Albert’s characteristic snoring.
7
The next day the three space travellers, plus Max the Mouse, approach the star Sirius at rocket speed.
“I still haven’t found a small planet,” says Uncle Albert, slightly disgruntled. “Only giant balls of gas like Jupiter and Saturn around our Sun.”
“Yes, but when we get closer I’m sure we’ll find something,” says Markus hopefully. “Think positive! Like you always say.”
“Yes, yes. Get ready. We’re going to pass Sirius at the speed of light so it will go very fast.”
All three look expectantly out of the window.
”Uncle Albert, Sirius looks strange.”
“What do you mean, Mariana?”
“Well, the star looks almost flat.”
“Yes! And it is. To us that is. It is really spherical like all stars, but we are travelling so fast now that everything we see becomes compressed in the direction we are going. It’s perfectly natural. It’s the same effect that allows us to travel through space for two days whilst hundreds of years have passed on Earth. As I mentioned before, Albert Einstein proved this with his relativity theory. Fascinating, isn’t it?”*12
Uncle Albert is now suddenly in a much better mood, thanks to physics.
”A hundred years! Then I guess no one we know is still alive,” says Markus miserably. “Will we ever see Mum and Dad and Lillan again?” Tears begin to well up in his eyes.
”Of course, no problem,” says Uncle Albert cheerily. ”I hope, anyway,” he adds quietly to himself.
“Well, now Sirius is far behind us and I didn’t see any small planets,” says Mariana.
“Shame. Well, there are a couple of hundred billion other stars in our galaxy, which is called the Milky Way, so I’m sure we’ll find a suitable planet.”*13
”A hundred billion! But we can’t search all of them!”
“No, we’ll have to hope for some luck. Now we’ll set our course towards the middle of the Milky Way and look carefully at stars we pass on the way. That is where the black hole is, and we need that to get back at the right time. We’ll take things as they come, and what will be will be…”
It is thirty thousand light years to the middle of the galaxy and there are a great many stars to study on the way. One early morning Uncle Albert wakes Markus and Mariana.
“Get up! I have found a planet which seems very promising. My instruments have shown that there is both water and atmosphere, air that is, with oxygen and other gases that indicate life. Unfortunately we don’t have enough antiproton fuel to land, but we can swing by anyway.”
As they near the planet they see that it has two big moons. In other respects, it resembles Earth, but the forest looks more blue than green and the mountains glimmer of purple.
”There’s not much ocean,” says Markus.
“Yes, no more than a third of the planet’s surface I’d say. Compared to Earth which has two thirds of its surface covered by water,” responds Mariana.
”Yes, but there is life here anyway. It is clear,” Uncle Albert concludes.
“Little green aliens?” asks Markus.
“Well I’m not sure about that. But I saw something that looked like big birds in my telescope. We’ll just have to return some other time and have a closer look. This is, after all, just a test flight.”
“Some test flight!” whispers Mariana to Markus. “All the way to the centre of the galaxy!”
8
The Moona-Lisa zooms through the Milky Way. They steer towards the centre of the galaxy – the location of the big black hole. Soon the rocket is whizzing through one of the Milky Way’s spiral arms and they pass one star after the other. Uncle Albert has to manoeuvre the rocket carefully to make sure not to get to close to any of them. On the sixth day Markus and Mariana notice that Uncle Albert is working intensively and is very concentrated. He goes back and forth between the steering equipment, his telescope, the rocket computer and a paper on which he does his calculations.
”We are approaching the hole,” he says. “I have to navigate correctly now so that we exit the hole at precisely the right time. You can see the hole through the windows in front.”
The children see a large pale cloud, which seems to grow as they approach it.
”But shouldn’t the hole be black? It is called a black hole, isn’t it?” asks Mariana.
“What we are seeing are enormous amounts of particles whirling around the hole, just like planets revolve around a star. The hole’s gravitational force is so strong that not even light can stream from it. So the hole itself cannot be seen.”
“So how will we get through it?”
“Good question! We will set ourselves spinning and with my special antiproton black hole rocket drive which will also produce an important magnetic field around us, it should work. If my calculations are correct.”*14
Markus and Mariana look at each other with uncertainty. Though they have never known Uncle Albert to miscalculate anything, they wonder if he hasn’t gone too far this time?
”Put your spacesuits on and buckle up. I have sown in extra protection into the suits to protect us from the spinning we will be subjected to.”
They get the spacesuits on and Markus and Mariana buckle up carefully in their seats. The children have now arranged a special little seat for Max which they buckle him into, but there is no spacesuit for him to wear. Uncle Albert says that mice are so small that the centrifugal force of the rocket spinning won’t be as dangerous for Max.*15
Uncle Albert makes one final round and checks his instruments, the computer and his calculations before he too buckles up. Outside the window space shimmers as though they were flying through a big white cloud.
“Okay, hold on, we’re entering the hole. Jihoooo!” Uncle Albert shouts and pushes a big black button.
The rocket starts spinning. Markus and Mariana think it’s like the worst carousel they’ve ever been on, except much much worse. It becomes hard to see out of the windows and soon it is pitch black outside. Unless it just feels that way because they’ve lost consciousness after all this spinning?
Soon the rocket starts to shake and it feels as though they are being stretched out and then compressed. Markus tries to utter a worried question if this is normal, but he cannot make a sound. They can barely breathe.
Then they see some sharp flashes of light outside the window. The shaking continues for a while, then finally dissipates and ends entirely. After a few more minutes Uncle Albert pushes the black button and the spinning subsides as well.
”Pheuuw,” he moans. ”That was rough, but I think we made it. How are you?”
“Not so good,” Mariana whimpers.
“Me neither. My stomach feels like it’s been turned inside out. Several times. Is it over?”
“Yep. Now we are heading towards Earth at maximum speed.”
“Good, I don’t think I want to go through any more black holes,” says Mariana.
”No, this was worse than the time we were thrown out of the volcano. Look at poor Max! He looks totally flattened.”
Max is lying perfectly still with his four legs in the air, gasping for breath. But when Markus gives him some cheese he recuperates quite quickly.
“In five days we should be back on Earth,” says Uncle Albert.
“How long have we been gone?” asks Mariana. “I have totally lost track of time.”
“7 days, 4 hours, 37 minutes and 11 seconds… 12… 13… 14… you can just look at the rocket’s clock here,” say
s Uncle Albert and points to a small screen. “That is, that is the time we have experienced since the launch at home in Sweden, our own time so to speak. On Earth it is a little hard to say how much time has elapsed. We’ll see as we approach.”
9
The next few days the travellers rush through the Milky Way without much happening. Markus and Mariana start asking Uncle Albert how much longer before they are back home. Uncle Albert circles his instruments and calculations and seems to become more and more quiet each day. But eventually, when Markus and Mariana ask for what must be the twentieth time, he points out of the window towards a star and says that it is the Sun.
“Tomorrow we will be on Earth. I have already started slowing down.”
The next day Markus and Mariana are glued to the windows. The Sun is shining much stronger and is getting bigger and bigger.
“Its Saturn!” calls Markus.
”And Jupiter!” Mariana chimes in.
Now they see the Earth. It is easy to spot with its big moon.
“Oh, how beautifully blue and white it is, our home planet,” Mariana sighs as they pass the moon. “Soon we’ll be home, right Uncle Albert?”
But Uncle Albert’s only response is an ”Uhum”. Markus and Mariana cannot understand why he is so distant and almost glum.
“Look, I think I see Africa,” says Mariana.
”No,” says Markus, ”really?”
Markus and Mariana gaze at the Earth in wonder, as it grows bigger before them. It doesn’t look quite as it should.
“Uncle Albert,” they say in unison, “doesn’t the Earth look a bit strange? The continents don’t seem to be where they should be? South America, for instance, is much too close to Africa, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes, hum,” Uncle Albert squirms in his seat and seems unusually unsure. “it depends what you mean with ‘where they should be’. They are where they should be… depending on which time we approach the Earth. *16
”What do you mean?! Now you’re even harder to understand than usual!”
”Well, we must have exited the black hole at the wrong time so we’re not quite in our own time.”
“What!! Did you miscalculate when we should go through the hole?”
“No, no,” says Uncle Albert quickly. “I don’t think I was wrong, but my hypotheses were not totally accurate. I had read that the black hole weighs four million times more than the Sun, but it appears to have been heavier than that. Or it could have been a collection of dark matter *17 around the hole. Anyway we seem to have come to Earth about fifty to seventy million years too early. I have suspected it the past couple of days as the stars haven’t quite been where I expected them to be. You do know that our solar system revolves around the centre of the Milky Way? It completes one circulation in two hundred and sixty million years and…”
“WHAT! But what are we going to do now?! Oh Uncle Albert, you are hopeless!” Mariana interrupts Uncle Albert’s lecture with a groan.
“No problem, no problem,” Uncle Albert hurries to respond. “It is easily solved with a little sightseeing trip with the rocket going at max speed for a couple of days.”
“Just not back into the black hole,” groans Markus.
”No, that won’t be necessary. That’s only if you’re going back in time. We are going into the future and so we’ll make a quick trip that is a short time period for us, whilst the fifty, sixty or seventy million years will have passed on Earth. I just have to determine the exact time we landed on Earth this time, and to do that I need to make some measurements. And we need to restock the water supply, so we’ll land on Earth for a short while. But we’ll need to be careful, we may arrive at a time when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth.”
”Dinosaurs?! Supercool! Way to go, Uncle Albert!”
Markus’ mood instantly improves at the thought of maybe getting to see a real live dinosaur. Mariana is more sceptical.
10
Uncle Albert makes a nice soft landing in a clearing amongst plants and shrubs next to a small river.
“Ha,“ he says. ”I think I have gotten the hang of landing this thing now. I’ll show you how to fill the water tank from the river and while you do that, I’ll make some observations and measurements so that I can figure out exact what year this is.”
Uncle Albert gives Markus and Mariana a hose that is rolled out from the rocket. He tells them to pull it down to the river. Then they can just turn on the builtin pump and wait till the rocket is full.
“Do you think you can catch some fish?” asks Mariana when they get to the river. “It would be nice with some fresh food for a change, after all those tinned foods that Uncle Albert brought.”
“Yeah, I’m tired of pea soup, dried fruit and Uncle Albert’s weird tinned oatmeal for breakfast. Not at all like the food at our house. But I would rather see a dinosaur than a fish,” says Markus dreamily.
“You can’t eat a dinosaur?! And how would you catch one anyway?”
Markus looks at Mariana and notices that she looks petrified.
“What are you so afraid of?”
“Uuuhhh, look!”
Mariana points upwards, behind Markus. Markus turns around.
“Oh, oh-oh-oh! That’s the biggest…”
Markus almost falls backwards.
”Must be a brontosaurus! Or something like that. I’ve read that it’s a herbivore.”
“But it looks like its six, eight meters high and it must weigh at least twenty tons! We’d best be careful,” says Mariana.
But Markus is not the least bit scared. He’s just delighted.
”We have landed in the era of the dinosaurs. Yippee! Let’s turn on the water pump and it can fill the tank while we explore.”
Mariana is not as elated and points out that not all dinosaurs are herbivores. Tyrannosaurus Rex, for instance, had huge jaws and would easily devour a human. But Markus persuades her and they go off together. Max is as usual on one of the children’s’ shoulders – Markus’ right shoulder to be exact.
After a few minutes they can already see two small dinosaurs running from a hiding place. They are covered in red and yellow feathers and look both beautiful and graceful. Then they bump into an entire herd of ostrich dinosaurs peacefully grazing on beautiful plants under some high trees. Markus and Mariana carefully move closer to the animals, which don’t seem to be dangerous or scared. In fact, they don’t seem to care much about the children at all.
“Strange animals,” says Markus.
“Well, they’ve never seen humans before, so they probably haven’t learned to be afraid of us. Nobody has ever hunted them with rifles or canons!”
They have just reached a small hill when they hear a swishing sound. Markus screams and Max peeps hysterically. A flying pterosaur dives down and catches Max the Mouse in his claws.
“Max! Max! Hang on, we’ll save you!” calls Mariana whilst the flying reptile flaps away with its prey (whose peeps can be heard a mile away).
“How?” groans Markus.
Mariana furrows her brow, rubs her temples and thinks intensively. Then she calls:
”The ostrich dinosaurs! Maybe we could ride them. Here, I have some sugar in my pocket. That usually works with horses!”
Said and done. The ostrich dinosaurs love the sugar and soon Markus and Mariana are each riding a swift dinosaur. *18 They chase after the flying lizard and it is not long before they hear Max’s peeping and catch sight of the pterosaur. Their dinosaurs run faster than the reptile can fly carrying Max.
”Maybe the flying reptile is going to feed Max to its babies? Oh, how terrible.”
“Poor Max. we have to stop the beast!”
The children have to shout to each other to be heard through the wind and the stomping of the dinosaur’s feet as they ride through the green and luscious landscape if the dinosaurs.
“Rocks! Look, Markus!” shouts Mariana as they pass what appears to be a dried-out river. “Let’s gather as many as we can and throw them at that
beast that has Max.”
Markus and Mariana quickly catch up to the flying reptile again, and now they are armed with rocks. The reptile seems to be getting tired and is flying more slowly. But it isn’t easy to throw rocks whilst riding, especially not upwards. The rocks miss their target or don’t even reach as high as the reptile. Mariana sees how Markus takes his sweater off.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to use my sweater as a slingshot,” screams Markus.
Using the sweater, he is able to launch a mighty shot that almost hits the reptile. Mariana immediately does the same. Her third shot hits the tip of the reptile’s wing and it is enough to scare it so much that it releases Max with a terrible scream and flaps away in terror. Max falls into a big soft bush and is miraculously unhurt (apart from some cuts and scrapes from the claws), although very shaken by the pterosaur’s treatment of him.
”Come on, let’s ride back to the spaceship and take care of Max,” says Mariana.
”Okay,” says Markus who has had enough adventure, at least for this time.
11
As they get closer to the Moona-Lisa, Markus’ and Mariana’s dinosaurs get skittish and refuse to go any further. Not even sugar helps.
“Strange, we’ll have to walk the last bit.”
“Yes, it isn’t far. You can see the top of Uncle Albert’s rocket shooting up over there by the hill.”
”Maybe that’s what’s worrying our brave dinosaurs.”
Markus and Mariana dismount their dinosaurs and thank them for their valiant efforts with a big hug. The animals quickly disappear and join the rest of their herd. The children go and get the water hose. As they struggle to drag to the clearing where the rocket landed they suddenly get a terrible surprise. In front of the Moona-Lisa a giant Tyrannosaurus Rex lays sprawled out with its awful jaws gaping open showing rows of razor sharp teeth.
The Space Journey Page 3