"Thanks, son. Look. I've got to go." Cooper told him, as they finally separated. "Good luck, huh? I'll see you later, too."
Mike was alone again. It was fifteen minutes before he went up. This time passed swiftly as he changed, hooked his shield with the harness to his waist, moved the box of food near his launch area, and opened the dome for take off. As Mike watched through the telescope the sky became darker as the eclipse began near five p.m. It was a strange, more immediate darkness than what took place normally, at a later hour on spring evenings. Mike moved away from the telescope, properly put on the tank and helmet, and just as the full eclipse happened he was away, and no one was the wiser. He stayed in the Earth's shadow as much as he could. Every few minutes of his decided schedule Mike turned on the air. Three quarters of the way to the carrier's known location, he decided to try some of the food.
"Wonder what it tastes like?" he asked aloud, and popped in a tube. The cap automatically removed and he squeezed out a drop into his mouth. "YUCK!" he gasped, "That stuff is HORRIBLE! I pity the poor astronauts that had to eat this for days! No wonder, it's been stored away for so long! Aw, well, guess it's not that bad, and it does seem to renew my strength a bit. Well, here goes!" And he finished off the tube with a few noisy slurps. "Hmmmmm! Guess I'll have another!" And he did.
He located the carrier in no time, and was off to the moon, being thankful, indeed for the supplies he'd been given. His strength started to weaken, so he ate some more and kept the air going full time. It helped one hundred per cent. Reaching the moon, he circled around to the dark side, landing where mankind couldn't hope to go for thousands of years; the freezing temperatures yet to conquer. By luck he landed by a range of lunar mountains, and on the side of these mountains was a naturally formed cave, near one of the huge craters.
"Perfect!" Mike thought as he sat the carrier down just inside the door along with the empty box from his food. Then, not far from either, he found two large boulders apparently knocked loose by a meteorite. He moved them both to the cave door. Placing his hands near the top left hand corner of the door, he made them radiate tremendous heat, as he'd somehow done at The Pentagon, and welded the "door" tight to the mountainside. Still not quite satisfied with the safety of the place, Mike raised his hands over the door and carved the permanent warning into the rock. It read-
"This area contains nuclear missiles. Explosives. Danger. Do not enter."
He wrote it many times, and twenty times each for all known languages! Then, standing back, seeming satisfied, with his hands on his hips, he nodded, then flew off. He was planning on going directly home, as to keep well in the Earth's shadow on the way back,