"Might as well. Water's five buckos a glass. Liquor's free with every
chaser."
Harvey's eyes bulged. Joe gulped. "That--that's robbery!" the lanky man
managed to get out in a thin quaver.
The barkeeper shrugged. "When there ain't many customers, you gotta
make more on each one. Besides--"
"Besides nothing!" Joe roared, finding his voice again. "You dirty
crook--robbing poor spacemen! You--"
[Illustration: _"You dirty crook!" Joe roared.
"Robbing honest spacemen!"_]
Harvey nudged him warningly. "Easy, my boy, easy." He turned to the
bartender apologetically. "Don't mind my friend. His adrenal glands are
sometimes overactive. You were going to say--?"
* * * * *
The round face of the barkeeper had assumed an aggrieved expression.
"Folks are always thinkin' the other feller's out to do 'em," he said,
shaking his head. "Lemme explain about the water here. It's bitter
as some kinds of sin before it's purified. Have to bring it in with
buckets and make it sweet. That takes time and labor. Waddya think--I
was chargin' feller critters for water just out of devilment? I charge
because I gotta."
"Friend," said Harvey, taking out a wallet and counting off eight
five-bucko bills, "here is your money. What's fair is fair, and you
have put a different complexion on what seemed at first to be an
unconscionable interjection of a middleman between Nature and man's
thirst."
The saloon man removed his dirty apron and came around the bar.
"If that's an apology, I accept it. Now the mayor'll discuss filling
your tanks. That's me. I'm also justice of the peace, official
recorder, fire chief...."
"And chief of police, no doubt," said Harvey jocosely.
"Nope. That's my son, Jed. Angus Johnson's my name. Folks here just
call me Chief. I run this town, and run it right. How much water will
you need?"
Joe estimated quickly. "About seventy-five liters, if we go on half
rations," he answered. He waited apprehensively.
"Let's say ten buckos a liter," the mayor said. "On account of the
quantity, I'm able to quote a bargain price. Shucks, boys, it hurts me
more to charge for water than it does for you to pay. I just got to,
that's all."
The mayor gestured to the native, who shuffled out to the tanks with
them. The planetoid man worked the pump while the mayor intently
watched the crude level-gauge, crying "Stop!" when it registered the
proper amount. Then Johnson rubbed his thumb on his index finger and
wetted his lips expectantly.
Harvey bravely counted off the bills. He asked: "But what are we to
do about replenishing our battery fluid? Ten buckos a liter would be
preposterous. We simply can't afford it."
Johnson's response almost floored them. "Who said anything about
charging you for battery water? You can have all you want for nothing.
It's just the purified stuff that comes so high."
After giving them directions that would take them to the free-water
pool, the ponderous factotum of Planetoid 42 shook hands and headed
back to the saloon. His six-armed assistant followed him inside.
"Now do you see, my hot-tempered colleague?" said Harvey as he and Joe
picked up buckets that hung on the tank. "Johnson, as I saw instantly,
is the victim of a difficult environment, and must charge accordingly."
"Just the same," Joe griped, "paying for water isn't something you can
get used to in ten minutes."
In the fragile forest, they soon came across a stream that sprang from
the igneous soil and splashed into the small pond whose contents,
according to the mayor, was theirs for the asking. They filled their
buckets and hauled them to the ship, then returned for more.
* * * * *
It was on the sixth trip that Joe caught a glimpse of Jupiter-shine on
a bright surface off to the left. The figure, 750, with the bucko sign
in front of it, was still doing acrobatics inside his skull and keeping
a faint suspicion alive in him. So he called Harvey and they went to
investigate.
Among the skimpy ground-crawling vines, they saw a long slender mound
that was unmistakably a buried pipe.
"What's this doing here?" Harvey asked, puzzled. "I thought Johnson had
to transport water in pails."
"Wonder where it leads to," Joe said uneasily.
"It leads _to_ the saloon," said Harvey, his eyes rapidly tracing the
pipe back toward the spaceport. "What I am concerned with is where it
leads _from_."
Five minutes later, panting heavily from the unaccustomed exertion of
scrambling through the tangle of planetorial undergrowth, they burst
into the open--before a clear, sparkling pool.
Mutely, Harvey pointed out a pipe-end jutting under the water.
"I am growing suspicious," he said in a rigidly controlled voice.
But Joe was already on his knees, scooping up a handful of water and
tasting it.
"Sweet!" he snarled.
They rushed back to the first pool, where Joe again tasted a sample.
His mouth went wry. "Bitter! He uses only one pool, the sweet one! The
only thing that needs purifying around here is that blasted mayor's
conscience."
"The asteroidal Poobah has tricked us with a slick come-on," said
Harvey slowly. His eyes grew cold. "Joseph, the good-natured artist in
me has become a hard and merciless avenger. I shall not rest until we
have had the best of this colonial con-man! Watch your cues from this
point hence."
Fists clenched, the two returned to the saloon. But at the door they
stopped and their fists unclenched.
"Thought you gents were leaving," the mayor called out, seeing them
frozen in the doorway. "Glad you didn't. Now you can meet my son, Jed.
Him and me are the whole Earthman population of Johnson City."
"You don't need any more," said Harvey, dismayed.
Johnson's eight-foot son, topped by a massive roof of sun-bleached hair
and held up by a foundation that seemed immovable, had obviously been
born and raised in low gravity. For any decent-sized world would have
kept him down near the general dimensions of a man.
He held out an acre of palm. Harvey studied it worriedly, put his own
hand somewhere on it, swallowed as it closed, then breathed again when
his fingers were released in five units instead of a single compressed
one.
"Pleased to meet you," piped a voice that had never known a dense
atmosphere.
The pursuit of vengeance, Harvey realized, had taken a quick and
unpleasant turn. Something shrewd was called for....
"Joseph!" he exclaimed, looking at his partner in alarm. "Don't you
feel well?"
Even before the others could turn to him, Joe's practiced eyes were
gently crossing. He sagged against the door frame, all his features
drooping like a bloodhound's.
"Bring him in here!" Johnson cried. "I mean, get him away! He's coming
down with asteroid fever!"
"Of course," replied Harvey calmly. "Any fool knows the first symptoms
of the disease that once scourged the universe."
"What do you mean, _once_?" demanded Johnson. "I come down with it
every year, and I ain't hankering to have it in an off-season. Get him
out of here!"
"In good time. He can't be moved immediately."
"Then he'll be here for months!"
Harvey helped Joe to the counter and lifted him up on it. The mayor and
his gigantic offspring were cowering across the room, trying to breathe
in tiny, uncontaminating gasps.
"You'll find everything you want in the back room," Johnson said
frantically, "sulfopyridine, mustard plasters, rubs, inhalers, suction
cups--"
"Relics of the past," Harvey stated. "One medication is all modern man
requires to combat the dread menace, asteroid fever."
"What's that?" asked the mayor without conviction.
Instead of replying, Harvey hurried outside to the ungainly second-hand
rocket ship in the center of the shabby spaceport. He returned within a
few minutes, carrying a bottle.
* * * * *
Joe was still stretched out on the bar, panting, his eyes slowly
crossing and uncrossing. Harvey lifted the patient's head tenderly,
put the bottle to his lips and tilted it until he was forced to drink.
When Joe tried to pull away, Harvey was inexorable. He made his partner
drink until most of the liquid was gone. Then he stepped back and
waited for the inevitable result.
Joe's performance was better than ever. He lay supine for several
moments, his face twisted into an expression that seemed doomed
to perpetual wryness. Slowly, however, he sat up and his features
straightened out.
"Are--are you all right?" asked the mayor anxiously.
"Much better," said Joe in a weak voice.
"Maybe you need another dose," Harvey suggested.
Joe recoiled. "I'm fine now!" he cried, and sprang off the bar to prove
it.
Astonished, Johnson and his son drew closer. They searched Joe's face,
and then the mayor timidly felt his pulse.
"Well, I'll be hanged!" Johnson ejaculated.
"_La-anago Yergis_ never fails, my friend," Harvey explained. "By
actual test, it conquers asteroid fever in from four to twenty-three
minutes, depending on the severity of the attack. Luckily, we caught
this one before it grew formidable."
The mayor's eyes became clouded mirrors of an inward conflict. "If you
don't charge too much," he said warily, "I might think of buying some."
"We do not sell this unbelievable remedy," Harvey replied with dignity.
"It sells itself."
"'Course, I'd expect a considerable reduction if I bought a whole
case," said Johnson.
"That would be the smallest investment you could make, compared with
the vast loss of time and strength the fever involves."
"How much?" asked the mayor unhappily.
"For you, since you have taken us in so hospitably, a mere five hundred
buckos."
Johnson did not actually stagger back, but he gave the impression of
doing so. "F-four hundred," he offered.
"Not a red cent less than four seventy-five," Harvey said flatly.
"Make it four fifty," quavered Johnson.
"I dislike haggling," said Harvey.
The final price, however, was four hundred and sixty-nine buckos and
fifty redsents. Magnanimously, Harvey added: "And we will include,
_gratis_, an elegant bottle-opener, a superb product of Mercurian
handicraftsmanship."
Johnson stabbed out a warning finger. "No tricks now. I want a taste of
that stuff. You're not switching some worthless junk on me."
Harvey took a glass from the bar and poured him a generous sample. The
mayor sniffed it, grimaced, then threw it down his gullet. The ensuing
minute saw a grim battle between a man and his stomach, a battle which
the man gradually won.
"There ain't no words for that taste," he gulped when it was safe to
talk again.
"Medicine," Harvey propounded, "should taste like medicine." To Joe he
said: "Come, my esteemed colleague. We must perform the sacred task to
which we have dedicated ourselves."
With Joe stumbling along behind, he left the saloon, crossed the
clearing and entered the ship. As soon as they were inside, Joe dropped
his murderous silence and cried:
"What kind of a dirty trick was that, giving me poison instead of that
snake oil?"
"That was not poison," Harvey contradicted quietly. "It was _La-anago
Yergis_ extract, plus."
"Plus what--arsenic?"
"Now, Joseph! Consider my quandary when I came back here to manufacture
our specific for all known ailments, with the intention of selling
yonder asteroidal tin-horn a bill of medical goods--an entire case,
mind you. Was I to mix the extract with the water for which we had been
swindled to the tune of ten buckos a liter? Where would our profit have
been, then? No; I had to use the bitter free water, of course."
"But why use it on me?" Joe demanded furiously.
Harvey looked reprovingly at his gangling partner. "Did Johnson ask to
taste it, or did he not? One must look ahead, Joseph. I had to produce
the same _medicine_ that we will now manufacture. Thus, you were a
guinea pig for a splendid cause."
"Okay, okay," Joe said. "But you shoulda charged him more."
"Joseph, I promise you that we shall get back every redsent of which
that swindler cheated us, besides whatever other funds or valuables he
possesses. We could not be content with less."
"Well, we're starting all right," admitted Joe. "How about that thing
with six arms? He looks like a valuable. Can't we grab him off?"
Harvey stopped filling bottles and looked up pensively.
"I have every hope of luring away the profitable monstrosity.
Apparently you have also surmised the fortune we could make with him.
At first I purpose to exhibit him on our interplanetary tours with our
streamlined panacea; he would be a spectacular attraction for bucolic
suckers. Later, a brief period of demonstrating his abilities on the
audio-visiphone. Then our triumph--we shall sell him at a stupendous
figure to the zoo!"
* * * * *
Joe was still dazed by that monetary vista when he and Harvey carried
the case of medicine to the saloon. The mayor had already cleared a
place of honor in the cluttered back room, where he told them to put it
down carefully. Then he took the elaborate bottle-opener Harvey gave
him, reverently uncorked a bottle and sampled it. It must have been at
least as good as the first; he gagged.
"That's the stuff, all right," he said, swallowing hard. He counted
out the money into Harvey's hand, at a moderate rate that precariously
balanced between his pleasure at getting the fever remedy and his pain
at paying for it. Then he glanced out to see the position of Jupiter,
and asked: "You gents eaten yet? The restaurant's open now."
Harvey and Joe looked at each other. They hadn't been thinking about
food at all, but suddenly they realized that they were hungry.
"It's only water we were short of," Harvey said apprehensively. "We've
got rations back at the ship."
"_H-mph!_" the mayor grunted. "Powdered concentrates. Compressed pap.
Suit yourselves. We treat our stomachs better here. And you're welcome
to our hospitality."
"Your hospitality," said Harvey, "depends on the prices you charge."
"Well, if that's what's worrying you, you can stop worrying," answered
the mayor promptly. "What's more, the kind of dinner I serve here you
can't get anywhere else for any price."
Swiftly, Harvey conned the possibilities of being bilked again. He saw
none.
"Let's take a look at the menu, anyhow, Joe," he said guardedly.