ce must have some use;
there must be a way of purifying it or neutralizing it. But Brion,
a stranger on this planet, would be dead long before he found out
how to do this.

Weakened by the cramps that still tore at him, he tried not to
realize how close to the end he was. Getting the girl on his back
seemed an impossible task, and for an instant he was tempted to
leave her there. Yet even as he considered this he shouldered her
leaden weight and once more went on. Each footstep an effort, he
followed his own track up the dune. Painfully he forced his way
to the top, and looked at the Disan standing a few feet away.

They were both too surprised by the sudden encounter to react at
once. For a breath of time they stared at each other, unmoving. When
they reacted it was the same defense of fear. Brion dropped the
girl, bringing the gun up from the holster in the return of the same
motion. The Disan jerked a belled tube from his waistband and raised
it to his mouth.

Brion didn't fire. A dead man had taught him how to train his
empathetic sense, and to trust it. In spite of the fear that wanted
him to jerk the trigger, a different sense read the unvoiced
emotions of the native Disan. There was fear there, and hatred.
Welling up around these was a strong desire not to commit violence,
this time, to communicate instead. Brion felt and recognized all
this in a fraction of a second. He had to act instantly to avoid a
tragic happening. A jerk of his wrist threw the gun to one side.

As soon as it was gone he regretted its loss. He was gambling their
lives on an ability he still was not sure of. The Disan had the
tube to his mouth when the gun hit the ground. He held the pose,
unmoving, thinking. Then he accepted Brion's action and thrust the
tube back into his waistband.

"Do you have any water?" Brion asked, the guttural Disan words
hurting his throat.

"I have water," the man said. He still didn't move. "Who are you?
What are you doing here?"

"We're from offplanet. We had ... an accident. We want to go
to the city. The water."

The Disan looked at the unconscious girl and made his decision. Over
one shoulder he wore one of the green objects that Brion remembered
from the solido. He pulled it off and the thing writhed slowly in
his hands. It was alive--a green length a metre long, like a noduled
section of a thick vine. One end flared out into a petal-like
formation. The Disan took a hook-shaped object from his wai