She had cleaned the bedraggled little corpse and was still cuddling it happily, when Marlin descended to obtain his share of the meager rations. He was struck by the madonna-like expression of the girl's features. Wonderful--the mother instinct--he reflected. Wonderful, yet sometimes pitiful. DuChane stared as he took his packing-box seat at the table. "Where'd the kid get that?" "Never you mind," bristled Maw. "She can keep it if she wants to. What harm's it doing, I'd like to know?" DuChane sniffed the air, as if in anticipation. "About this time tomorrow--if there is such a thing--you'll need no urging. If there's any stink more potent than an over-ripe rodent, I'd hate to find out about it." "How does it happen," demanded Sally, "that the stuff out there didn't act the way it does when we throw things away?" "That's a thought!" DuChane agreed. "Whatever we throw away, the shell digests--tin cans, refuse, scraps. But this--" He shrugged. "Just one of those freakish accidents, I suppose." * * * * * The strange aftermath was that when they gathered for another meal, after the usual sleep period, the mouse was standing on its tiny hind legs, daintily nibbling crumbs from Pearl's hand. "This thing gets more uncanny," DuChane growled. "We were wondering how the stuff came to leave the creature intact. Now we find that it knows the difference between inert objects and those potentially alive. Not only that, but it seems to know how to keep the creatures in suspended animation." "You talk as if the ship was something alive," observed Sally sharply. "It's quite possible," Marlin suggested, "to conceive of chemicals in the clay which attack dead tissue, but to which live cells are resistant." "Intelligent chemicals! That's a hot one!" retorted the girl. Marlin eyed her calmly. "It's not so farfetched. I can name one chemical right off the bat--just plain water. Put dead vegetation in a damp spot and it decays. Live vegetation draws nourishment and thrives under the same condition." McGruder eyed with distaste the slender rations set out before him, then glanced up longingly at the enclosing sphere. "There must be a mess of them dead animals out in that clay. I wouldn't mind havin' a little fresh meat, even if it was only a chipmunk." The suggestion was received apathetically, but Marlin found himself reflecting that this might offer a not impossible solution of their food problem--presuming that they survived the dwindling stock of canned provisions. CHAPTER XII