A very fine line. It's an open secret that many cross it.
They call it the Empire of Ten Thousand Worlds, but I don't think anyone could tell you how many there actually are, or how far apart. Possibly the Spacing Guild, but that brings us back to spice. The Guild Navigators guard the secret of the spice closely. Most people think it's a form of complex mathematics, what they do, calculating the deterministic physics of the universe, and that must be part of it, but it's prescience that checks those calculations. You can only travel at the speeds needed for space travel if you can predict a perfect course from the beginning, since there's no mind fast enough to react as the ship travels. I'd always wondered how it was done.
[It would be too much to have hoped Palamedes would say something like, oh, prescience, of course, and launch into another dense explanation of a well-studied branch of study. That's not the point of this. The point is that it's done what he hoped: be the kind of puzzle that can distract from grief. It's what he's used it for, turning it over and over in his mind. It's how he came to the conclusion about the Guild - and the reason for so much of what had happened, unlocked too late to matter.
Paul holds a palm out to catch the rain; he's truly soaked now, cold cloth clinging to his skin, but he thinks of gold-flecked sand and its searing heat.]
Interfering with spice production is forbidden. No one who holds the monopoly on the planet would risk offending the Spacing Guild by doing anything that might be construed as that. Even the Emperor treads lightly with them. Without the Spacing Guild and their Navigators, space travel is impossible - they can kill a House by stranding it, but if you threatened their control over spice, they'd bring the full force of the Empire down on you.
You don't need to know what spice is, or where it comes from, to mine it, and make your House rich for generations. [He shakes his head, looking at Palamedes - who will understand very well how much of a frustration that is.] That was one of the things I wanted to find out when we got there. That brings us to the ecology.
The other thing that only occurs on Arrakis are the sand worms. [Paul tips his hand, pooled water falling from it.] They're massive filter feeders, some over four hundred metres long, that tunnel through the sand with vibration, hunting by sound. They're the greatest danger on Arrakis. And they always follow the spice.
[Paul pauses here. He wants to see if Palamedes will also draw the conclusion that's seemed so obvious to him from almost the start, but has somehow escaped the notice of anyone else: the worms and the spice are linked.]
no subject
They call it the Empire of Ten Thousand Worlds, but I don't think anyone could tell you how many there actually are, or how far apart. Possibly the Spacing Guild, but that brings us back to spice. The Guild Navigators guard the secret of the spice closely. Most people think it's a form of complex mathematics, what they do, calculating the deterministic physics of the universe, and that must be part of it, but it's prescience that checks those calculations. You can only travel at the speeds needed for space travel if you can predict a perfect course from the beginning, since there's no mind fast enough to react as the ship travels. I'd always wondered how it was done.
[It would be too much to have hoped Palamedes would say something like, oh, prescience, of course, and launch into another dense explanation of a well-studied branch of study. That's not the point of this. The point is that it's done what he hoped: be the kind of puzzle that can distract from grief. It's what he's used it for, turning it over and over in his mind. It's how he came to the conclusion about the Guild - and the reason for so much of what had happened, unlocked too late to matter.
Paul holds a palm out to catch the rain; he's truly soaked now, cold cloth clinging to his skin, but he thinks of gold-flecked sand and its searing heat.]
Interfering with spice production is forbidden. No one who holds the monopoly on the planet would risk offending the Spacing Guild by doing anything that might be construed as that. Even the Emperor treads lightly with them. Without the Spacing Guild and their Navigators, space travel is impossible - they can kill a House by stranding it, but if you threatened their control over spice, they'd bring the full force of the Empire down on you.
You don't need to know what spice is, or where it comes from, to mine it, and make your House rich for generations. [He shakes his head, looking at Palamedes - who will understand very well how much of a frustration that is.] That was one of the things I wanted to find out when we got there. That brings us to the ecology.
The other thing that only occurs on Arrakis are the sand worms. [Paul tips his hand, pooled water falling from it.] They're massive filter feeders, some over four hundred metres long, that tunnel through the sand with vibration, hunting by sound. They're the greatest danger on Arrakis. And they always follow the spice.
[Paul pauses here. He wants to see if Palamedes will also draw the conclusion that's seemed so obvious to him from almost the start, but has somehow escaped the notice of anyone else: the worms and the spice are linked.]