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 with 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 small part of a second. He had to act instantly to avoid a tragic accident. A jerk of his wrist threw the gun to one side. As soon as it was gone, he regretted his 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?" "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 meter long, like a noduled section of a thick vine. One end flared out into a petallike formation. The Disan took a hook-shaped object from his waist and thrust it into the petaled orifice. When he turned the hook in a quick motion the length of green writhed and curled around his arm. He pulled something small and dark out and threw it to the ground, extending the twisting green shape towards Brion. "Put your mouth to the end and drink," he said. Lea needed the water more, but he drank first, suspicious of the living water source. A hollow below the writhing petals was filling with straw-colored water from the fibrous, reedy interior. He raised it to his mouth and drank. The water was hot and tasted swampy. Sudden sharp pains around his mouth made him jerk the thing away. Tiny glistening white barbs projected from the petals, pink tipped now with his blood. Brion swung towards the Disan angrily--and stopped when he looked at the other man's face. His mouth was surrounded by many small scars. "The vaede does not like to give up its water, but it always does," the man said.