John tells his dad to calm down. He's had "many flights since then" which brings him to the point of his visit. "A strange thing happened on my last space mission," he says. When an alarmed Jonah says that NASA "didn't release a shred of information about your flight", John ominously replies that "they couldn't" and that "they had to make sure the space spores wouldn't be harmful to Earth, first". This brings John to his second flashback of the sequence, though this is something we have never seen before. He had been orbiting Earth in his latest space capsule and even went out for a space walk. But when he reentered the capsule he discovered that "some mysterious spores", which look like little flickers of light "had drifted inside with me". At the splashdown of the capsule, as he awaited pick- up by a helicopter, John noticed that the spores "clung to my space suit then later to my body". Returned to NASA, John was "subjected to intensive tests for days" but "everything appeared to check out a-okay". The spores "finally just faded away" so it was decided to release him but, concerned that "they may have had an effect upon him that won't show up until later", NASA decided to keep John under guard for "at least six months" because "certain nations would give anything to examine him behind the Iron Curtain". (I'm not sure why since the spores seem to have faded away, but you know those Commies! They want to get their hands on everything!) So, two guards follow John around everywhere and, even now, are stationed outside of Jonah's office door. Meanwhile, perhaps afraid that the idea of the Communists wanting to kidnap John isn't going to fly, Stan adds some more detail to it, having John say, "You see, dad, the space agency medics gained invaluable information by studying those spores and my reactions to them, information that may give us the boost we need in the space race!" (Whatever information that could possibly be.)
