"So who'd you meet in the desert?"
Vash thought back to all the sand dunes, identical under the twin suns' rays; remembered the mirage-that-was-no-mirage as if he'd stumbled across it just this morning. He'd approached the two figures cautiously, warily, one hand on his gun.
"Hello, good sir. We appear to be lost."
The golden man looked like some sort of robot. His companion was taller, with blue-upon-blue eyes, no whites.
"I'm in a time-space valley. I cannot foresee the path back to my homeworld."
Vash sipped his drink and shifted in his chair.
"No one you'd know."