"I should have known the entire Claybourne family would be in on this hijacking deal!" He turned to Mike who had come up behind them. "Thanks a million, son! You sure have saved us a lot of time and a lot of folks a lot of trouble by catching this bunch of no goods! We've been trying for months now!"
"Anything to help clean up this country! It's a pleasure!" Spirit Lad said, "I'd best be going now!" and he soared away after shaking the sheriff's hand. Dr. Cooper sighed heavily and looked around him for any hint Mike may have returned, but not finding any, he readied himself beside the driver and the convoy was off again. Mike somehow managed to land, and faster than the speed of light got into the rear of the truck again without being seen. He changed and by the time of the next stop was fast asleep, his head on some small boxes, not to awake until an hour later.
When night came, they pulled over into a countryside clearing and sat up tents for the night. As they sat around the campfires the crew couldn't stop talking about the excitement of the day. Mike, Larry and Cooper were sitting side by side, as usual, as a young tech came up.
"Gee, Mike," he told him, "you missed the whole thing! Spirit Lad was here and rescued us all, and you were asleep the whole time! Boy, it was great! I still can't believe I really saw him in person!"
Mike and Larry nodded, trying not to burst into laughter. Larry's face was redder than the reflection from the firelight.
"That's all right," Mike said, "I'm sure I'll see him another time. It's more fun to hear the story from you people!"
The next morning they were off again at five o'clock and reached Hermetaseal around noon. The attendant that showed them around and brought them to the zero gravity room was pleasant, and understood completely when Dr. Cooper explained that he needed complete security precautions because there would be testing for a government top secret project. They were assured it was fine to have government security guards take over. The equipment was set up in no time. He was instructed in the use of the control panel to the anti-grav chamber. Mike didn't take much time getting used to maneuvering in the zero gravity conditions. He felt a little dizzy at first, but that cleared up quickly. By mid afternoon, after twenty or so attempts with the MLC mock up, Cooper pushed the button to the intercom microphone on his control panel just beside the glass window through which he could see the boy floating beside the model, and called to him.
"All right, Mike, come on down. You can take a break now. Come on out, I want to talk to you about something very important!"
As Cooper pushed the button to open the door to the room and walked away toward a nearby bench, Larry and his co-workers busied themselves resetting the controls for the next try.