"Good idea! You and Jeanie can work together. She'll need to have you for measurements and fittings, anyway. Let's just hope our results prove worthy of our work."
thanked the spirit for his help. The man vanished. Carefully going inside the shell of the vessel, Mike found the cargo hold. To his joy, he discovered what he searched for had been stored in large, round, metal containers. The half dozen of them had been able to withstand their submerged existence without much wear and tear, and Mike could easily read their bold labels. Now, he had to concentrate on getting them back to The Institute. He pulled one of the tins loose from the sand that had accumulated around them, and since it was too wide for him to wrap his arms around, he found an old piece of cable and tied them together with it. He then towed it to shore, being careful to hide them in the shallow water near the pier until he could return for them all. Then he hoisted up his first load of them and took off flying, for The Institute.
When Mike finally got the material into the lab, and told his friends that there was more to come, they could hardly restrain themselves from opening them immediately, but waited the few minutes more that it took Mike to go back and retrieve the rest he'd found so Dr. Cooper could check them out for possible radiation.
"However did you find it?" Jeanie asked.
"Oh, I had a little unexpected help!" Mike said, teasingly.
After Mike pried the lids open, Jeanie and Cooper inspected the material.
"Look! This is black!" Jeanie cried, removing the bolts of stuff and testing its weight with her long, slender fingers.
As they dumped out the other container, Cooper cried, "This stuff's gold!"
"Hey!" Cooper exclaimed, after he reached into the bottom of one tin, "Here's the fixative we need to glue seams together instead of sewing everything. They say it was the strongest adhesive in the world! We'll soon find out if it's true, won't we? Does anyone here have any experience with sewing?"
"I have," Jeanie quickly replied. "I don't do very well, but I know the basics. I took a course on it in high school."
"Great! Would you be willing to spend most of your time for the next few days putting together a special suit for Mike? You could design it yourself, and everything. Surprise us with the results. I'll even provide you with the space to work on this, right here in the building."
"I would love to do it!" Jeanie agreed, beaming from ear to ear.
While the pair were talking Mike had taken another tube of adhesive from the barrel and was carefully reading the instructions on the back of it. "Hey!" he called out, "I won't have Jeanie working with any of this stuff! It's toxic! See, Doc?" he handed Cooper the tube.