I had the coolest dream last night – something about being on a spaceship that was mostly built by the Mayans. There were some issues with the oxygen system – we’d thought we wouldn’t need any O2 above 900 miles, then it turned out we did, so suddenly I couldn’t breathe and thout we were all going to die – but then the backup system kicked in. It had only been intended for a few people who for some reason had different breathing requirements than the rest of us, but it was somehow self-contained and could handle any number of people. It provided less air than we were used to but plenty to function well. (This may have something to do with me recently spending a few days in Quito, which is at an elevation of 9250’/2820m.)
Later on, I went to explore the ship farther and walked into a big room with a sign proclaiming “GET ALL YOUR SPACE QUESTIONS ANSWERED – FROM MOVIES, BOOKS, ANYTHING”. There were lots of people all around the room, at screens or talking to computers.
The whole thing seemed like a much more cohesive story at the time than my patchy memories are conveying now, I do like it when I get narrative dreams – it’s like getting to keep reading even while I’m asleep. (Aside from the time I had a nightmare involving cryogenics. I don’t ever need to do that one again. The problem was, Ted went under first, To be woken up at some far future time, and only then did I learn that the procedure ended up killing about 75% of the people who went through it. So I had to choose between losing him or taking that risk myself. Blech.)