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."