Chapter 18
Foreman collected up the jars of dope he'd prepared earlier and carried them to the pool. Already full of smoke, he handed them out. None declined.
'The GenMoP uses the pool?' Mitchum asked, as Monkley jumped in.
'The water's filtered constantly,' said Foreman. 'You don't mind do you?'
Mitchum shrugged. 'It's just that I thought Chimps didn't like water much.'
'I threatened him with sleeping in the airlock if he didn't take a regular bath. That's right, isn't it, Monkley?'
'Monkley,' he said, helping himself to a jar and having a smoke.
'I bet the I S F would love to see one of their billion dollar babies getting stoned,' said Debbie.
Foreman was having trouble keeping eye contact with the ladies. “Keep calm. Foreman.” 'He knows when to stop. He usually has a smoke then curls up asleep. So. What does bring you here if it wasn't rescuing us?'
'Drilling,' said Mitchum. 'It turns out when we sent down the first bore, we got close, but no cigar. We struck water, like the geologists said we would, but we were off a little way. We hit a kind of shelf. We got water of sorts out of it, but the mineral content is higher than we'd like, and the pressure is lower than we hoped for.'
'Everything seems okay to me,' said Foreman, smoking and averting his eyes from Susan's ample breasts, bobbing up and down so delightfully on the surface of the pool.
'It's okay,' said Debbie, 'But the filters are getting clogged too fast. Without somebody to change them regularly, the reservoir would be a slimy mess in no time. A deeper bore in the right place will give us more pressure and cleaner water to start with.'
'Makes sense. How long will that take?'
Mitchum said, 'A couple of weeks we think. It depends what we hit. The formations are all over the place. Some of it is like pure iron. This is pretty good dope, Andy.'
'My old college pals taught me a thing or two about curing it. Beats me how we all managed to pass the exams.'
'And now you look after this handsome fellow,' said Debbie.
'Oooh!' said Monkley, his eyes beginning to roll around in his head. 'Happy.'
'Okay, Monkley,' said Foreman, taking the jar off him. 'Time for bed, pal.'
Monkley stretched and yawned, kissed Debbie on her cheek and climbed out of the pool and disappeared into the jungle.
'Will he be alright?' Joe asked.
'He'll curl up in a tree somewhere.'
'I don't know about you lot,' said Susan, 'But I'm off to bed.'
'Yeah,' said Mitchum. 'We've an early start in the morning.'
Seven naked people got out of the pool. Foreman tried hard not to show his appreciation of the female form and gathered up the jars. He took those to the kitchen and put them safe for the dope to burn itself out. When he reached his bedroom, he found somebody had beaten him to it.
'Susan. Sorry. I usually sleep here, but it's no bother. I'll bunk down somewhere else.'
'I'll be disappointed if you do, Andy.'
'Oooh!'