McGruder, who as a rule evinced little interest in matters beyond
eating, sleeping, and following the feminine members of the party with
pig-like, calculating eyes, was the one who made the discovery.
He had climbed to the observation scaffold and peeped idly through the
periscope. His yell of dismay reverberated through the interior of the
vessel.
"We're gonna hit the moon!" he shouted, as the others scrambled into
view.
Marlin gained the platform. "What's the idea!" he demanded sharply. "We
aren't within a million miles of the moon."
McGruder gulped, gesturing toward the periscope.
Marlin remained glued to the instrument until DuChane cut in roughly:
"Give someone else a chance. What's out there?"
Marlin relinquished his post. His voice sounded unnaturally strained.
"See for yourself."
It did look like a shrunken version of the old familiar moon--a
gleaming disc shining brilliantly against the inky blackness of space.
"We're approaching a solar body of some sort," Marlin told the others,
who had struggled up to the platform. His eyes inadvertently sought
Pearl. "Maybe this is the answer to--" He broke off.
DuChane straightened from the eyepiece.
"Two to one it means a crackup," he commented. "Unless Eli knows how to
guide this shebang--and I don't believe he does."
Nevertheless, they reported the approaching crisis to the inventor. Eli
had grown more eccentric as the voyage continued. His hair and beard
were wilder; he talked incoherently.
When he had assured himself that they were actually approaching a
stellar body, he displayed a great deal of energy, rushing from
periscope to control room and back again; but they had no way of
knowing the result of this activity, and received scant satisfaction
from his impatient responses to questions.
"My private opinion," Marlin observed, later, "is that his instruments
have no more control over this vessel than if we'd left them in that
pit back on Earth. All connections must have burned out in that
incredible burst of power that hurled us into space."
But at least, Eli made a great show of adjusting his switches and
levers. Whether he planned to effect a landing or was trying to avoid
the approaching body, was a secret locked in his own dome-like head.
In time this new menace became common-place and life lapsed into its
dull routine, with Marlin alone spending a great deal of time observing
their progress toward the stellar body. On one occasion, Pearl paid him
one of her infrequent visits.
He looked up as the girl climbed from the ladder.
"Better run along," he said abruptly. "It's considered bad medicine for
you to chin with me."
* * * * *
She stopped beside him and cocked her head on one side, for all the
world like a bird listening for a worm.
"It is so lonely," she said yearningly.
"You--lonely?" he repeated in surprise. "Didn't know you ever felt that
way."
With a suggestion of impatience, she touched the bulging crust of clay
surrounding the original entrance-hole.
"So lonely," she insisted. "Please let it out."
Not quite sure of her meaning, he picked up a crowbar and tapped the
hardened crust. This seemed to be what she desired, for she stood aside
expectantly. Cracking the surface, he dislodged a section and allowed
the gummy interior substance to flow out.
The girl smiled her pleasure, then cupped both hands over the soft
mass, working them below the surface almost lovingly.
"So lonely," she murmured, in a crooning voice.
When she withdrew her hands, smeared with the gummy exudation, she held
a small lump of some kind in her palms. As she rubbed the clay away,
Marlin saw with a start that it was a dead field mouse.
This was one of the numerous creatures that had been enmeshed in
the sticky clay, he realized. But how had the girl known it was
there--close to the surface at this point?
"Better throw it into the incinerator," he advised gently. "Nasty
thing. Dead."
Shrinking from his outstretched hand, she cuddled the mire-covered
little body to her breast and almost furtively escaped down the ladder.
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.