Brothers Reading Books
Will and Michael.
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Join us in our online book club as we go through classic books with a focus on science fiction and fantasy.
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Dune Part 4 - Kynes and Spice Mining
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We weigh betrayal, prophecy, and leadership under pressure as a sandworm turns a routine spice run into a moral crucible. Leto’s public doubt of Jessica, Paul’s growing gravity, and Kynes’s conflicted loyalties all converge in one choice: people over profit.
• Harkonnen note plants suspicion of Jessica
• Leto’s staged distrust as counter-move
• Paul’s terrible purpose and truth-sense deepen
• Kynes torn between science, Fremen faith, and duty
• Still suit tech and desert survival rules
• Shields as worm bait and the logic of “possibilities”
• Missing carry-all and strained Atreides logistics
• Rescue over revenue wins Kynes’s respect
• Maker prayer and signs of embedded Fremen presence
• Destiny, propaganda, and the ethics of leadership
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Foreshadowing: Mahdi And Lisan Al-Ghaib
SPEAKER_00Hello and welcome back to Brothers Reading Books. We are your hosts. I'm Michael Kentris, and I'm joined as always by my brother. I'm Will Kentris. How are you doing today, Will? I'm doing pretty well. How about you, Michael? I'm also doing well. So today we are continuing our discussion of Dune. Discussion appropriately, because a lot of our continuing the book here is discussions. So we we get some more talking. But before we get to that, for those who are listening, just what are the main beats that we're hitting in today's recording?
SPEAKER_01So in these three chapters we're covering today, we're kind of continuing where we left off last time. So they had just finished the War Council, and now Leto and Thufer are having kind of a one-off personal discussion. And then there's another discussion following that between Leto and his son Paul. And then in the third chapter, a little longer one, is we kind of tag along where we see Paul and Thufer. No, not Thufer. Uh Leto and Gurney kind of tag along with the Imperial Collegist Kines on a sand mining expedition. Or not sand mining, but extraction.
SPEAKER_00Spice. Yeah, spice. Yes, we want to get it from the sand. So yeah, uh with this first conversation, as you said, the war console had just broken up in a bit of disarray, not the usual confidence and incisiveness that uh that Paul's used to seeing at the end of these meetings. And so now we kind of get this conversation with Thufer and uh Hawaii where he he brings up this uh or I should say uh what do they call it? A slip of a note. Not even it's not even worth mentioning, just a fragment. Barely barely anything at all, my lord. So so I don't know if you have the details of that on you, Will. So the note itself, let's see.
SPEAKER_01I don't.
The Note: Doubt Cast On Jessica
SPEAKER_00Because that's back when it was between Lady Jessica and Paul. That's okay. Let's jump back a little bit here. So the the intro to this chapter, we've got another extract from uh Princess Arulin, where we get the first use of this word Mahdi, which this is something you know I had to look up, and I apologize to anyone who speaks Arabic, because I do not. But apparently this is this is something from certain form of Islamic eschatology, which uh, for those who don't know, eschatology is kind of like the the study of the eschaton or the end times. So kind of like a you know end of the world type figure. Uh, and this is um supposed to be a descendant of Muhammad shortly appear before Jesus. This is according to Wikipedia, the uh internet archives there. So um, but but yeah, so we're getting again this kind of uh messianic imagery again associated with the Mu'adib. And then we also get this term here, the Lisan el-Ghaib, which they call voice from the outer world. But I think it it translates also as like a um tongue of the unknown or tongue of the unseen, which, you know, some parallels there in terms of the poetic license for translation. So so we're again getting some like kind of prefigurations here of some messianic themes, this kind of missionaria protectiva from the Bene Gesserit, and uh very heavily foreshadowing, prophetic, right? All this kind of very heavy imagery kind of leading us along as this story continues to ratchet up in tension. So so anyway, like we were saying, so I I should have said that before if we went right into the the other thing here, but um but we kind of get this, as I was saying, this conversation with Thufer and Duke Leto, and you kind of get this thing that's found on a courier from what's suspected to be a Harkinan agent. And it's, as I said, a scrap of a note, extremely suggestive. And so it's it's been partially destroyed. It had some sort of like acid capsule attached to it to destroy the film, blah, blah, blah, right? Kind of like a, you know, burn-on reading sort of thing. And it just says, dot dot dot, Ito will never suspect, and when the blow falls on him from a beloved hand, its source alone should be enough to destroy him. And the note was under the Baron's own seal, and I've authenticated the seal. And so, you know, obviously, the Duke and Lady Jessica, super tight, very aligned, and so anything that kind of suggests that she may betray him, let's just say he's not keen on. Right.
SPEAKER_01It definitely seems to be the case that even though it says from a beloved hand, he immediately intuits that it's supposed to be Lady Jessica. Or at the very least, that is the intent of the note, whether, you know, it's again kind of leaning into that wheels within wheels, plans within plans, feints within feints within feints, but yeah, he he definitely kind of immediately assumes that they're referring to the Lady Jessica in this case.
SPEAKER_00Then we kind of get like there's been all this painting of the Duke's character as kind of like a uh traditional man of honor following the ways of Canley, like their chivalric code. And when we when we next, next time get to kind of like the the dinner a little bit, he he even uses the words like you know, chevalier or chevalier, right? It's kind of like a French knight term. And in this instance, he says, what a slimy piece of business, right? So we kind of get this repeated imagery description of of kind of the honor of the Duke as contrasted to kind of the the underhanded political dealings that he's kind of forced to wade through with like the you know the game of houses and all that stuff. So we get a little more details, you know, because we know kind of through some of the story here, like like Yui's been with the family for about six years. Here we see she's been with the Duke for 16 years, the lady Jessica has, and I think Paul is about 15, 16 years old. So, you know, that kind of gives us a little bit of a time frame as far as that goes. And then kind of the Duke goes through his reasons for why it's like this is impossible. And it's kind of along the lines of, you know, she's had so many opportunities, you know, knife in the dark, poison. It could have been any time. And also that the Harkonans want to destroy the Atreides line, and that would be Paul as well. And he's just like entirely disbelieving that she would have any thoughts of harming her son. Right. He even mentions there, could a woman conspire against her own son? So, yes, and then that's that's kind of what uh you know, Thhufer, Thufer's job is to be suspicious, right? He's the master of assassins, the mentat. So he's he's all about these knives in the dark. And uh he keeps emphasizing their intent is not just to kill, there's a range of fine distinctions in Canley. This could be a work of art among vendettas. And so, you know, again, right, that very evocative word, kind of the you know, the old Italian vendetta of these blood feuds. And the Duke rebuts, what better way to destroy me than to sow suspicion of the woman I love? And so they kind of go back and forth about this for a while, and uh they kind of come to a compromise.
SPEAKER_01Right. He kind of thinks to himself, let him be suspicious. Suspicion is his trade, not mine. Perhaps if I appear to believe this, that'll make another man careless. So he agrees to more or less go along with, at the very least, publicly distrusting the lady Jessica to hopefully have the Harkinans or their agents kind of play their hand prematurely or fall into some other trap that they might lay in the future. Right.
Paul And Leto: Charade And Death Thoughts
SPEAKER_00I think this just emphasizes again kind of the the tightness and honor of the kind of Atredius family, despite all the pressures and as you said, the wheels, the feints within feints, that there's still this trust and loyalty that is amongst this core group of people. So I think it's just another way that they're kind of emphasizing that as they go. And then they kind of shift conversation a little bit here, where he presents them with a film clip, a first approximation analysis of the Freeman religion, which we've been getting a lot from these excerpts by the Princess Arulin. And so we kind of get, again, this term here, I guess should say the first time it's spoken by our characters, is the that Mahdi term again. And they again reference this prophecy, a child of a Bene Gesserit to lead them to true freedom, and it follows the familiar messiah pattern.
SPEAKER_01I do think it's a little interesting there, familiar messiah pattern that this is something common enough on probably multiple planets, I would assume, where you know it is it has been identified if and there is a pattern that you can kind of follow from from those pieces of data.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I also think, again, right, this is kind of a um sort of syncretism of of several religions that we're seeing um, you know, Herbert play with here. As much as like Messiah, right, is a Hebrew word, meaning like the anointed one, that comes into Greek as Christ. But then we have this, you know, Mahdi, which is like an Arabic term. So it's it's kind of interesting that you have like kind of all of these little elements put together here. So it's uh it's very interesting the way that he kind of plays with with these patterns that we as the reader are likely familiar with growing up in a like a Western cultural milieu. And so there is a kind of little bit of shorthand that you can use to create certain impressions amongst your reader. I don't know. Have you noticed that at all, Will? Or am I reading into the tea leaves too much?
SPEAKER_01Maybe not as much. Obviously, there are aspects of it that I do pick up, but as someone who is not nearly as well-versed in religious texts, I would say some of it does go over my head simply due to the fact that with this piece of fiction, along with I feel like a lot of other fantasy and science fiction novels, you're kind of just thrown into the world without any explicit exposition. And so there are times where I just kind of, if I encounter a term I don't know, implicitly just assume that, oh, is this something that is specifically made up for this world? And surprisingly, in this one, the answer is half the time, no, this is something that does it does have some sort of factual background. Yeah.
Enter Kynes: Science Meets Prophecy
SPEAKER_00And I will say though, like when I when I had previously read this book, there are terms like like Mahdi, you know, things that I wouldn't have been familiar with from my own background that um I assumed were like fictional terms. And no, they are in fact real. And then other times I I Google, like there was something else that comes along later on. I was like, that sounds like it might be a real word. And I I do a little search for it, and I'm like, no, this is this is from Dune. That is the origin. Yes. Which I think really speaks again to the versimilitude that that he's building with this world, is what is real and what is fantastic. And you kind of blur that line a little bit. And I mean that's that's kind of the whole point, right? You want to be able to suspend that disbelief to invest emotionally in a story and to find something that's like, you know, is this worthwhile to read? Are there lessons here beyond just a, you know, a good story? And I think that that's kind of very helpful in that is that you have a level of writing skill that blends just enough reality with just enough fiction to kind of keep you on your toes a little bit. I'm like, there have been quotes where I'm like, that sounds kind of, you know, like like biblical or from some other religious text. Like, no, the the origin is also Dune. So it's one of those things where you can kind of like mimic the tone of some of these like ancient works and incorporate them into like into the background as you know, I don't want to say flavor text, but but it kind of is, but it's a little more deep than that. Like it's not just the superficial level. Like there's actual thematic elements within the flavor text, so it's not just kind of the superficial dressings to make it seem real. There's also like you know, philosophical implications and cultural implications and such. Anyway, I I really enjoy that aspect of this reading, and especially us going through it together like we are. Um it's made me really attend more to a lot of these selections of words and like when you sense like a sh subtle shift in tone in some of the characters, right? Like Gurney Halleck, you know, he talks in a certain way, and he quotes or he'll say something, and it's like, well, that's not how he usually talks. And we see that with a few other characters as well. And so you always kind of wonder, is this a quote from Dune or from somewhere else? And so I I end up spending a lot of time typing phrases into the search engines to see where did this come from. And like you said, like a third to half the time it's it's Dune.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it it it definitely does a very good job of blending reality and fiction. So again, it speaks to to Frank Herbert's kind of ability and skill as a writer, especially since I believe this is his first published work. I know he worked as a writer prior to uh this piece, but you know, as far as a first publication, wow. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I know. Well, going onwards, so Thufer and the Duke finish their conversation. Duke kind of stalking around the building. He comes back to the conference room, finds Paul asleep, a robe thrown over him, and a Diddy pack for a pillow. And they kind of write, we're getting these all these implications that Paul is like this very weighty figure. But here we get a picture of him like almost as a child still, right? And I think that's a a nice juxtaposition that you see there. It's like, you know, he's he's almost a man, but maybe not quite yet. And then they just have this I just thought this was a pretty turn of phrase. Again, right. Obviously the environment doesn't have any feelings, so this is a projection of the Duke's inner uh mental state on his environment and his perception of his environment around him. So just a beautiful way of phrasing it and also kind of giving us an insight into the current state of this character.
SPEAKER_01Right. Still has a lot of that anger brimming underneath.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Excuse me. But uh yeah, there's just like some nice little things here, right? We get a lot of inner monologue from the Duke here. Again, right, this anger shooting through him. And I love this phrase here. I must rule with eye and claw as the hawk among lesser birds, and unconsciously his hand brushed the hawk emblem on his tunic. So it's just uh one of these things where he's like, you know, he's he's trying to master these emotions, right? Kind of going back to what we saw at the beginning with Paul's test to see if he is human. It's like the the Duke never underwent this test as far as we know, or else he'd probably be dead. But but he is perhaps someone who wishes to become human, to master his passions. And I think you you see that a lot, right? He's he's trying to kind of school his thoughts a bit.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Kind of, yeah, lending more to that inner monologue there, he kind of rants and raves a little bit about the Harkin's a little bit before. Yeah, he kind of tries to rein in those emotions a little bit by mentioning that line about ruling with Ian Claw. So obviously, you know, he's still struggling quite a bit with it. I don't I don't think it goes quite as well as he was hoping, which kind of also seems to be the general trend with most of his plans.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. Again, right? There's as we've said, I think on almost every recording so far, there is this feeling of inevitability, this kind of plotting of events that are beyond one's control. And, you know, I do think that that name, the, you know, the Atreides is very deliberate in as much as like the Iliad is very much a story about the inevitability of prophecy and you know, what can man do against the fate of the gods, so to speak. So it's very much like this this whole section of the book has felt, right? It was all forecast in the first couple of chapters, and it's just been the fulfillment of event after event, just as they were described, right? The the moves, the counter moves, everything has been going quote unquote to plan, but to whose plan, right? So that's the part that still remains a little bit in doubt is who will succeed and to what extent. And it's it's very interesting again, as a plot device, to say like this is what's going to happen. These are our evil plots, ha ha ha. And then all those things keep happening, right? Like we know these things are happening, but yet I still, even though I've read this book like two times prior, you still feel this ratcheting up of tension, like what will happen? You know, what will you know, there's a conflict brewing. They keep hinting at it at, you know, a dozen different ways in terms of secret agents, little skirmishes on the edges of different villages, all these types of things. And it's very well done in as much as like we know what they're driving towards, but we don't know the conclusion per se. It's it's one of those things that uh you have to do very skillfully, or else it's just like, well, they already said this was going to happen. You know, it becomes very boring and dull. So there has to be enough variation. You have to have enough like insights into the characters and their motivations, and it's it's very interesting the way that he's kind of fleshed out this whole arc, but then we're kind of getting like little hints of each character's inner monologue about their motivations and why are they doing this? Like why are they participating in this action that's driving them towards this seemingly inevitable conflict?
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Again, just another another way that we are kind of using that destiny versus free will sort of mechanic here. So, like you mentioned, we we do get these inner thoughts, these kind of personal motivations to look at this grand machine and see the cogs as more than just pieces that are moving the story forward. So it is very well done. I I've been enjoying it immensely.
Still Suits, Shields, And Desert Rules
SPEAKER_00And it doesn't hurt that his prose is very pretty as well. So as the Duke's standing there, you know, we get this description of the star or the the moon and the stars, and then he's watching the sunrise, and he says he had never imagined anything here could be as beautiful as that shattered red horizon in the purple and ochre cliffs. Beyond the landing field where the night's faint dew had touched life into the hurried seeds of Arrakis, he saw great puddles of red blooms, and running through them inarticulate treadoviolet, like giant footsteps. And just jumping forward, you know, because maybe this would be a good planet for my son. Then he saw human figures moving into the flower fields, sweeping them with strange scythe-like devices, dew gatherers, water so precious here that even the dew must be collected. And it could be a hideous place, the Duke thought. So by juxtaposing the human struggle with the natural beauty of this environment, which I think is a fairly recurrent theme throughout the story so far, is that uh you kind of get the like with the Freeman interactions we've had, right? Kind of these like tough, uh wiry, you know, desert toughened people and pruned wrinkled. That's right, that's right. I think we get some more of that as we go into this next chapter as well, uh, where we get some some internal monologue moving on to the next chapter. And I thought this was I mean, this is a pretty universal thing, I think, to everybody. Uh right, the Princess Arulin. Collected sayings of Mu'adib. There is probably no more terrible instance of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man with human flesh. Right. I think everyone kind of goes through a phase where they think of their father as this, you know, nigh, invincible figure, could do anything, and there's some moment of disillusionment that occurs, you know, at some point in your life, whether that's as a child or older. And I think that's uh that's been kind of hinted at over the last couple of chapters, where we've seen Paul observe the strain and the tension that's mounting on his father. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I I believe in the war conference room, Paul even mentioned that he had felt his father leave before he had actually left. He he didn't have that strength. Strong presence that he had originally described him as having in those first few chapters. So we're just seeing him slowly being diminished by a thousand cuts through this sort of confrontation with the Harkinans and their agents on Arrakis, learning the fallibility of his father. Right. So do you want to walk us through this next scene, Will? Sure. So here we have a pretty short chapter where we're kind of covering a conversation between Paul and the Duke. And the Duke is kind of informing Paul of his plans to play up this tension, discontent between him and the lady Jessica. And he starts it off by saying, Paul, I'm doing a hateful thing, but I must. And as he kind of goes further on here, watching a film clip actually of various pieces of religious practices. And again, we see Paul found himself disturbed by the references to himself, Mahdi, Nisan al-Gahib, and again we find a reference here to his terrible purpose. Yes. As I was reading this, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the one meme of that's an anime guy going, Is this a butterfly? And it's like, is this my terrible purpose?
SPEAKER_00Right, right. I mean, to me, I I know it's like obviously much later, but I always think of that scene, I forget which movie it was, but it was Loki saying, like, I have been burdened with glorious purpose, which I feel like is very much like a riff on this the same kind of thing here. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh, and I wanted to say, I didn't look it up the first time we had mentioned this, the the Kwisatz Hatarach, or however you pronounce it. But this is a term from Jewish Kabbalah, apparently, the kefitzat hatarak. And I apologize to everyone, I speak no Semitic languages, but it translates roughly to like a shortening of the way or a leap of the path. So again, right, kind of one of these sort of mystical religious figure terminologies, so it is kind of loosely tied to some, you know, kind of Middle Eastern ancient religious sects, if you will. Right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it definitely seems as we've gone into the far-flung future, there's still remnants of or at least interpretations of current modern religions, but they've been kind of blended or otherwise kind of reinterpreted.
SPEAKER_00And who's to say? I mean, a lot of hints we've gotten from the Bene Gesserites and some other characters is that this was perhaps intentional, right? Done however many hundreds or thousands of years ago to create this situation so that a populace could be manipulated in certain ways. So if you wanted to take a cynical eye, right, it is the intentional use of the innate tendency towards religious beliefs amongst a people and manipulating that in such a way that an outsider could come along and co-opt that religious belief. Obviously, that would be a very cynical view of religion in general. But, you know, is that the Bene Gesserit view of religion? I don't know. Uh there's a lot of people.
SPEAKER_01It would definitely assist, I think, that kind of original way that the Reverend Mother had described the school of thought attributed to the Bene Gesserit politics. So just being able to manipulate or to an extent uh kind of use to a singular purpose or multiple purposes, any sort of people. But yeah, their schemes again, schemers gonna scheme. Very much, very much. So the Duke, the Duke continues after uh they're watching this film clip, a hateful thing, the Duke said. So what do you mean, sir? And so this is where he professes to Paul, because the Harkinans think to trick me by making me distrust your mother, they don't know that I'd sooner distrust myself. And so in a slow voice to contain his anger, the Duke explained to Paul about the mysterious note. And Paul's like, Well, you might as well also distrust me. And so the Duke more or less kind of explains further to think they have to think they've succeeded. They must think me this much of a fool. It must look real. Even your mother may not know the sham. So again, kind of building up this charade to make sure that, you know, they can try to maneuver their way outside of, again, this layering of plans and danger that lay in trap for them.
Flight To Spice: Politics In The Thopter
SPEAKER_00Yes. And yeah, that's uh that's the tricky thing, right? Is that he wants her reaction to be genuine. So he's not going to bring her into this deception. And obviously that's going to lead to some tension later on, right? I mean, it's I don't think broadcasting anything too unexpected to say that, you know, she gets irritated with this later on, and we get some text about that that we'll probably talk about later. But uh but like why are you telling me, right? That's what Paul asks. And we get this they'll not watch you in this thing. You'll keep the secret, you must. This way, if anything should happen to me, you can tell her the truth. That I never doubted her, not for the smallest instant. I should want her to know this. Paul recognized the death thoughts in his father's words. So we kind of get these explicit things, right? That someone's kind of speaking with this kind of melancholy, morose thought line about his, you know, coming death. Right. And then we're kind of, again, right? He just ratchets up that tension again that the the Duke is like, you know, there's a very real chance I may die soon. And so we we've got that in some of his thoughts recently, uh, where he's thinking about like his legacy, his son trying to prepare the way for his line to continue. And yeah, they use the melancholy degeneration of the great houses has afflicted me at last, perhaps. And we were such strong people once. So yeah, uh, and he talks about again, right? We've had hints of this from both Lady Jessica and now from the Duke, about um, you know, if I were stronger, I would have wed her, you know, but I leave this hope open to play the game of houses here, inasmuch as like maybe they will want to wed one of their daughters to me, so they'll make alliances, right? So it's like basically saying it was the easy way out. Um and I I should have done, you know. Basically, he regrets, perhaps, in the moment, not having made that decision. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he even says further on, nothing wins more loyalty for a leader than air bravura. I therefore cultivate an air bravura.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Right, which is which is true. And they've hinted at this a little bit, right? Where you like straighten himself up, you know, you can't have your leaders looking uncertain or as if they're lacking confidence, or else that kind of trickles down through the whole structure and everything can fall apart.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. It's a delicate house of cards. And so Paul protests, you lead well, you govern well, men follow you willingly and love you. And the two kind of cynically responds, My propaganda core is one of the finest. It's just like, yes, I'm glad you believe that. Everyone should believe that, but you know, he he is, again, very much aware of the cracks in the foundation.
SPEAKER_00And so we get the sense, right? Like, just like it said in the intro from Princess of Rulin, right? That's you know, he Paul's he's the curtain's being pulled back on his father's inner monologue, and now we're getting basically an outer monologue. Uh and he's like, you know, we're making film based from the spice, and he's like, what? And he's like, the people must learn how well I govern them. How would they know if we didn't tell them? Right. So it's very cynical, almost sarcastic. And he talks like, you know, spice is in everything here. It helps you resist poisons. Also, because everything, all the food, the water, the transportation's under strict surveillance, we can't kill off large segments of our population with poison. So it makes us Arrakis makes us moral and ethical. So, right, I mean, it's like he is he is super cynical right now. And and he basically says, like, what why are you saying this? And he gives us a straight answer. It's like, I have to have someone I can say these things to, son. So he's basically unburdening himself to his son at this point in time because there's nobody else that he really has as a confidant. Even though he has these trusted companions and advisors, uh, there's no one that he can just let all of these doubts out to because of like kind of the pressure cooker that they're in. Everyone, all of these other people have their own roles that they have to complete. And he doesn't want to burden them, this is my interpretation. He doesn't want to burden them to negatively impact their efficiency and effectiveness. And so, you know, who does he have left that he can trust? His son.
SPEAKER_01Right, especially with him now having this ploy of kind of alienating Lady Jessica as well. So literally, all he has is a son to confide in. Which is not great. Not great. Right. And so, yeah, he kind of further goes on on Caladin, we ruled with sea and air power. Here we must scrabble for desert power. This is your inheritance, Paul. What has become of you if anything happens to me? I'll not be a renegade house, but a gorilla house, running hunted. So fearing fearing the worst, which again is kind of why he's trying to cultivate this relationship with the Fremen, because if anything should happen, which again is looking more and more obvious to him as they step further into this mire, that's going to be probably the only hope left to Paul and Lenny Jessica and any other trusted companions. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Power and fear, the tools of statecraft. I must order new emphasis on gorilla train for you. So and they kind of again, he explicitly says what has been implied thus far. Mahdi, listen, Lisan El Ghaib, as a last resort, you might capitalize on that. Paul stared at his father, watching the shoulders straighten as the tablet did its work, but remembering the words of fear and doubt. So again, right, he collects himself and they move on, right? So what's keeping that ecologist? And then scene shift. So yeah, right, so we get this whole insight into the things that are worrying the Duke, what's on his mind. And again, right, it it kind of has this feeling of inevitability. No matter how hard you scrape and scrabble, it's not quite enough. Anything in this part here that caught your eye from this passage by the princess?
Worm Sign And A Missing Carry-all
SPEAKER_01So one of the things that did kind of stand out to me, so she talks about how her father, the Padashaw Emperor, so again, we get a little context here that she is the daughter of the emperor, so we know exactly what her relationship is to everything at this point in time. Took me by the hand and end one day, and I sensed in the ways my mother had taught me that he was disturbed. And so that definitely the way it's phrased there made me immediately think, like, oh her mother was likely a Bene Gesserit as well, kind of again, lending the way that the Benezerit do to influence and kind of have children with people of note. And so she goes on to recount his quote that he says to her prince, My father was seventy-one at the time and looking no older than the man in the portrait. And I was but fourteen, yet I remember deducing the instant that my father secretly wished that the Duke had been his son, yes, and disliked the political necessities that made them enemies. So not sure if there was like some sort of technological capability there, making the emperor long live it or at least youth uh appearing, youthful appearing, but it was something that stood out to me that Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I know that the uh melange spice uh does that as well. So whether that's related to that or something entirely different is left left up to the reader to guess at the present.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Yes. So yeah, that was kind of my takeaways from that entry. I'm not sure if you have anything more specific.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So we get the introduction now of a very interesting character, Dr. Kines, the ecologist or planetologist, as they stick to the old words here on Arrakis. Yes. But man, this like even the first sentence in this chapter, his first encounter with the people he had been ordered to betray left Dr. Kynes shaken. Man, there's like so much loaded into that one sentence here, right? So we already know, right? Dr. Kines, he's the judge of the change, right? So this kind of handing over of the fiefdom of Arrakis from the Harkinans to the Atreides, and then he is like directly reporting to the like the Imperium, like the Potasha Emperor's bureaucracy. So he's kind of an imperial agent. So he has been ordered by the emperor, supposedly, or someone in the emperor's administration, to betray the Atreides. Yeah. So that's like that's a lot right there.
SPEAKER_01And I do think it's interesting how they immediately contrast that. So being a planetologist, he he prided himself on being a scientist to whom legends are merely interesting clues pointing toward cultural roots. But the boy fitted the ancient prophecy so precisely, he had the questing eyes and the air-reserved candor. So immediately just contrasting that, though he is well educated, though he is priding himself on being a scient man of science, he d is very heavily influenced by these of prophecy that the Benegiserit, the missionary protectiva, has laid and sown for centuries, I assume.
SPEAKER_00At least, right? So, you know, so he's he's kind of showing up at this uh this base here. He walks past a guard with an air distortion of a shield around him, which kind sneers at. Um Arrakis has a surprise for them there, he thinks. So we kind of get this, right? There's these these hints at his character, right? He prides himself as a man of science, but yet he's influenced by these ancient prophecies. He is sneering at the technology that is common for the off-worlders, right? So you kind of get this kind of haughty confidence impression of a man very confident in his own abilities.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. He kind of comes in and he meets with the various members of the treaties, he runs to some guards, and so he sees I believe it's described as Duke Leto, real quick. He's wearing some Fremen clothing. He wore a jubba cloak with a treaties cres at the breast and wore it in a way that portrayed his unfamiliarity with the garment. It clung to the legs of the still suit on one side and lacked a free swinging, striding rhythm.
SPEAKER_00And I think it's important to note that he is also wearing a robe and a still suit, Kynes', that is. And so he's he's noticing, right? Like anybody in a in a profession, right? It's like, you know, you don't look like you belong in those clothes, right? Like someone who works off his job dressing up like a someone who works on a construction site just doesn't look quite right necessarily. And so he's kind of he's judging them based on their bearing in in this garb. But then he notices the young man next to him that looks very similar. Uh sense of command, poised assurance, um yet he wore the same style cloak as his father, yet with the casual ease that made one think the boy had always worn such clothing. Then we get a little quote here. The Mahdi will be aware of things others cannot see went to prophecy. And so we get all these little like little prophetic tidbits uh in Kyn's monologue as we go through here, which again kind of paint a picture for us. Aaron Ross Powell And he merely tries to discount that. It's like they're just people. Right. So yeah, right, he's kind of fighting against his his inclination for this prophecy. It's like, no, no, I'm a I'm a man of science. I don't believe in, you know, such primitive things, etc. But um but it keeps coming up as we go on and on, right? So it it definitely speaks of perhaps a man who is in conflict with what he wants to believe and what he like the rational mind and the subconscious mind, if you will.
The Rescue: Choosing People Over Spice
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. So he initially gets briefed by Gurney Halleck on how to address them, and he just gets kind of very frustrated with the whole thing. The Duke is a man or uh they'll learn soon enough who's master on Arrakis. So order me questioned half the night by that ment. Will they expect me to guide them on an inspection of spice mising? Do they? So again, like initially he has a very bad first impression of these people because he, like you said before, kind of has this haughty sense of superiority by being familiar with the planet, being familiar with kind of the cultural and production of spice here. So he's just like, what are these people even doing here? So it uh definitely uh lends a little more to developing kinds as a very well-fleshed out character.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And uh yeah, they talk about like they wanted the imperial bases, right? Which we we got from that conversation that Thufer and the Duke were having earlier in the council. And you know, there were some people saying, like, oh, that has religious significance, if we push too hard, it might be a problem. And then we get kind of confirmation here from Kynes' internal monologue that yes, that would be a problem. It was obviously learned of the basis from Idaho, and he says, I'll have Stilgar sent Idaho's head to this Duke, Kynes told himself. So very severe speaks to some sort of relationship. You know, who is this ecologist that has such sway over the freeman that he can request the execution of one of the Duke's top men? So again, right, there's these hints that Kynes is more than what he seems.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And then it does an interesting flip of perspective here. So it then shows us kind of the description for Kynes from the perspective of the Atreides. So tall and thin, dressed for the desert in loose robes, still suit and low boots, the man's hood was thrown back, its veil hanging to one side, revealing long sandy hair and a sparse beard. The eyes were that fathomless blue within blue under thick brows and remains of dark stain smudged his eye sockets.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And then we kind of get the explicit explanation, right? Like you're the ecologist, we prefer the old title, planetologist.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00And then the Duke explains to his son, Judge of the Change, Arbiter of Dispute, the man set here to see that the forms are obeyed in our assumption of power over this the over this fief. And he glanced at Kynes, and this is my son.
SPEAKER_01And then I find it very funny here how Paul just straight out asks him, Are you a Fremen? And then Kynes replies in this very roundabout way, not necessarily saying that he is or isn't, but he says, I am accepted in both siege and village, young master, but I am in his majesty's service, the imperial planetologist. And so, again, just kind of belign what he might actually be in relation to any sort of cultural relative significance here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So it's kind of we get a little flashbackwards here when uh uh the Duke had been spying him by binoculars as he walked towards us, and Gurney Halleck had described him as an odd sort of fellow, precise way of speaking, clipped off, no fuzzy edges, razor aft. And the Duke said, scientist type, you know, I don't know. Will, as as a scientist type yourself. Is that accurate? Yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_01More or less being No, there is no excess. There there is no waste in the words that are being used.
SPEAKER_00So Yes, right? It's either a yes or no, all things binary.
SPEAKER_01Right, absolutely. Gotta know your twos. Yes.
The Maker Rises: Sandworm Devours Crawler
SPEAKER_00So Paul sends the power, the impact of personality as though he were blood royal, born to command. Right. So this again, this is a man with presence, with a way of authority about him. And we get a nice description of still suits. And they kind of talk a little bit about uh how they work and all that kind of stuff, which I I don't know. As someone who studied biology in college, I thought it was interesting. At least from a theoretical perspective. But uh before we get to that, the Duke said, I was concerned you said you couldn't take us into the desert unless we wore these garments. We can carry plenty of water, we don't intend to be out long, and we'll have air cover. It isn't likely we'd be forced down. Kynes stared at him, seeing the water fat flesh. He spoke coldly. You never talk of likelihoods on Arrakis, you speak only of possibilities. So we get this kind of flip in his demeanor, right? Before he'd been kind of observing the forms, you know, like my dude. My lord, blah, blah, blah. But here it's like now he's again razor, right? And so it's it's one of those things, and we kind of see again this this uh condescension coming out again a little bit, right? With the the shield, the water fat flesh, right? These people are soft, is is his perception, and they don't know our ways, and they're going to get us killed with their ignorance. Something to that effect. At least that's my kind of take on it.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. No, I I do think that phrase is very interesting. You never talk of likelihoods on Arrakis, you speak only of possibilities, because as they're trying to figure out who this traitor has been in these past several chapters, they're like, would it be so-and-so? Like, no, that's impossible. They hate the Harkonans. And so they're again like talking of like, oh, it's impossible and a lot unlikely that he could betray us because of XYZ, whereas they're not lending any potential thought to how it could happen or why it might happen. So I do think that's something very interesting to kind of point out there in contrast to the way that the Atreides in general have been kind of thinking about things so far.
SPEAKER_00Right. No, I think that's very true. So the Duke is trying to make a good he wants to build a relationship, so he you know basically says Gurney, you know, at ease, more or less. And these suits and the consideration for our welfare will be remembered. And then Paul quotes the the O.C. Bible, Orange Catholic Bible. The gift is the blessing of the giver. Um one of the guards, one of the Freeman guards who are with Kynes, shouts out, you know, Lis Lisan El Ghaib, and um you know, which we already kind of discussed a little bit, kind of this messianic figure. So you know, the gift is the blessing of the giver. Uh I mean that's kind of like just a reworking, I think, of some old right, you know, better to give than to receive. That was from uh the book of Acts, I believe chapter twenty, verse thirty-five. And St. Paul was saying this upon leaving the church at Ephesus. Um and he was as like kind of after giving an example of like all the works he had done and stuff like that. So it's a I mean it's a pretty common expression, I think, for for us modern Americans. Better to give than receive. And I think it's just it's kind of just a reworking of that.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And so Kines kind of negatively reacts to that. He gives a curt chopping single with the hand and waves the guard away to again. Like, even though they may be following Paul may be following all these kind of telltale signs of what they believe would be this messianic figure, they kind of want to downplay it, at least right now. Uh-huh. And then I do find it interesting or funny, at least that Leto says, most interesting.
SPEAKER_00Yes, that was uh Yeah, I can just imagine the look on his face, like with a raised eyebrow and kind of a, you know, quizzical look. Yes. And he kinds like most of the desert natives here are a superstitious lot. Uh pay no attention to them. But then internally he's thinking they will greet you with holy word, then your gifts will be a blessing. So it's like he can't help himself. And then uh this this assessment from Duke Leto uh suddenly crystallized the man was Freeman. He'd come with a Freeman escort, his manners, proud, freedom, his tongue and manner. Uh and then just this sentence here, kinds had gone native, right? Which you've kind of like had this this feeling of leading up to this point, right? In the way, like all as I said, all of his mannerisms in just these few pages here, and uh basically just confirmation of what you're probably already thinking as you're reading through this section here. So, right, he's he's kind of he's become Freeman, essentially.
SPEAKER_01Yes. So they kind of discuss next the general setup for how they're going to be flying out to this operation. So the Duke says he'll fly out of his own Thopter, and then he'll have Kynes directing him, and then Paul and Gurney will be sitting in the Thopter with him, and they'll have a few other Thopters with their guard detail kind of following along, uh, you know, in case of any sort of additional attacks or whatever. But you know, that's that's the general layout of how they set out on this initial expedition.
Aftermath: Kynes Reconsiders The Duke
SPEAKER_00Right. And so in preparation, right, Kines is like, I need to check your still suits because if you wear them wrong, anything happens to you. It's, you know, I'm on the line for that. My throat's the one that's gonna get slit. Yes. And so, you know, it's a a moment of trust, right? Because he's wearing a shield generator, so I let him within my shield. And this is kind of where we get the the explanation of like how you put everything on and like kind of what they're doing. And uh I I don't know. I'm I'm gonna read this because I think it's kind of interesting. I I always enjoy some good techno babble. It's basically a micro sandwich, a high efficiency filter, and heat exchange system. He adjusted the shoulder seals. The skin contact layer is porous, perspiration passes through it, having cooled the body near normal evaporation process. The next two layers, Kynes tighten the chest fit, include heat exchange filaments and salt precipitation. Salt precipitators. Salt is reclaimed. Duke says most interesting. Uh Kynes studied the underarm seals, adjusted one, so as he's talking, right, he's adjusting the Duke's thing, you know, you know, a little tight here, adjustment there. Motions of the body, especially breathing, he said, and some osmotic action provide the pumping force. Reclaimed water circulates to catch pockets from which you draw it through this tube in the clip at your neck. Urine and feces are processed in the thigh pads, he said, and stood up, felt the neck fitting, lifted the sections flap there. In the open desert you wear this filter across your face, this tube in the nostrils with these plugs to ensure a tight fit. Breathe in through the mouth filter, out through the nose tube. With a Freeman suit in good working order, you won't lose more than a thimbleful of moisture a day, even if you're caught in the great erg, which is like the big desert, which I found, just as an aside. Erg, you know, as some of our scientific listeners know, is like a measurement of a unit of work in some of those old physics equations. So you wonder, right, the great work question mark? Or is it some other root? Is it the Greek root or somewhere else? But I think if if we think of work as something that is done, then who is the one doing it? Just let that hang in the air for the moment. But but then uh they talk about again, right, like the fitting and all this, and then he looks at Paul's suit, and Paul's remembering putting it on, and just it felt instinctive to him. Yes. And Kynes looks at him, it's like you've worn a still suit before, and he says, This is the first time. And you know, he's like, Who told you to do it this way? And just like it just felt right. And then Kynes has another one of these legends in his head, you shall know your ways as though born to them. So again, right, there's all these little like weird little things about Paul that are kind of like striking a chord in Kynes and his Freeman guards.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Yeah, he just even just subconsciously is fitting all of these kind of yeah, little little bits and pieces of breadcrumb trail of the least son out guy.
SPEAKER_00Right. So they get in the the Thopter, and you know, the everything's like upholstered, shiny, filtered in washed air, and he just has a thought. So soft. And right, he's not talking about the upholstery, right? He's talking about the people in the Thopter with him.
SPEAKER_01Like their water, fat flesh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's right. So again, he he does not necessarily have a high opinion of these people at this point in time, although he's having perhaps second thoughts about Paul.
Reflections, Themes, And Listener CTA
SPEAKER_01Yes. So again, they're being directed southeast over the shield wall, and that's where I told your sandmaster to concentrate his equipment, and then they kind of talk a little more about kind of the general still suit process. They talk about, hey, something may show you a what is it, a siege factory of the still suit production, because again, there's definitely a preference for Fremen made versus the kind of locals, because again, you wouldn't be caught dead in the desert without a Fremen still suit. Right, the artisanal Fremen still suit, if you will. Yeah, exactly. Any doom man who values his skin wears a Fremen suit. That's exactly what he says. Right. Again, Kynes sat back thinking about the water fat flesh he had felt beneath the still suits. And then he has this other thought the people struck Kynes as a strange combination of softness and arm strength, because they had all these knives and the cheese that they wore appeared well worn. So again, this might be kind of the initial crack in his perceptions of them being perceived as weak or soft. And then kind of a tense discussion here between Kynes and Leto, because again, he is the judge of the change. So when you report to the Emperor on the change of government here, will you say we observe the rules? Leto asked. He glanced at Kynes back to their course. And he's like, the Harkonens left, you came, and is everything as it should be? Leto asked. And then just kind of they both kind of talk around it. And it's just like I am a direct subject of the Imperium, my lord. Like, but we know the realities of the situation. I remind you that his magic supports my work, and then this is kind of where things get a little more is like, indeed, and what is your work? Because he's trying to dig a little more into kind of what kinds' motivations are here. And Paul has this thought in the brief silence, he's pushing this kinds too hard.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So yeah, he kind of talks about uh like, well, it's mostly dry land biology and botany, geological work, core drilling testing. You never really exhaust the possibilities of an entire planet. Do you also investigate the spice? Kynes turned and Paul noted a hard line of the man. Everyone in this uh Thopter right now has hard lines over their cheeks and jaws. But uh basically he said, I don't care if you study the spice as long as I share what you discover. The Harkinans discouraged investigation of the spice, didn't they? And no answer. You may speak plainly without fear for your skin. The Imperial Court is indeed a long way off, Kines muttered. And he thought, What does this water soft invader expect? Does he think me fool enough to enlist with him?
SPEAKER_01Right. He was like, I am not putting my eggs in your basket just yet, so And the Duke is aware of this. The Duke chuckled, keeping his intention on their course. I detect a sour note in your voice, sir. We've waited in here with our mob of tame killers, eh? And we expect you to realize immediately that we're different from the Harkadins. So again, just flooding everything with the propaganda before, but you know, everybody of course takes that with a grain of salt here. So yeah. I've seen the propaganda you flood into Siege and Village kind, so I love the good Duke. You're gonna And then Gurney kind of bursts in again with Right. How dare you be so rude to my Duke?
SPEAKER_00Right, right. So yeah, that's kind of you know we get a hard uh shift in the conversation here. It's like, you know, it needs you know more directions. And so we get a description as they pass over the shield wall, this knife-edged shelf, barren rock plain, crescents of dunes toward the horizon, here and there a dull smudge to tell of something not sand, perhaps rock outcroppings. And they get we get some more ecologic description here. Paul asks about plants, what we call minor water stealers, adapted to raiding each other for moisture, gobbling up the trace dew. If you get caught down there, you imitate that life or you die. And again, right, we get some more emphasis on the importance of water, right? As a recurrent theme. You mean steal water from each other, Paul asked. The idea outraged him, and his voice betrayed his emotion. And uh Kine said, It's done, but that wasn't precisely my meaning. You see, my climate demands emphasis on my climate, demands a special attitude toward water. You are aware of water at all times, you waste nothing that contains moisture. And again, right, we kind of have this uh hinted at earlier with the Freeman who died on his way to the Duke. Yes. Where they say I think it was his his body's body's water belongs to is yours. And right, that's a gift, right? That's water for your clan. So right, just more emphasis on this. And also the emphasis as far as the emotion that Paul has, where in this climate, nothing could be more dishonorable than stealing water from someone else as well.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And so Paul kind of keeps peppering in with some questions here. So he asks about the sand must be dangerous if we fly into it, and then he asks if we'll actually see spice mining today. And we learn that ultimately he's using what his mother called registering a person. So this is kind of getting a more detailed, I don't know, perception of an individual. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I would kind of think of it as like when they do like a lie detector test, right? You you ask these like baseline questions like, How old are you? What color is your shirt? You know, like questions that have concrete objective answers. Um and then you kind of ask them more challenging questions, things that might have shades of truth to them.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. So yeah, he says he had kinds now, tone of voice, each detail of face and gesture. So very much like you said, I I believe this yeah would contribute to his truth sensing that they have referenced before, whether or not, you know, if they act in a manner unfamiliar. Yeah, they described as what the the observation of minutiae and so during this process he had also noticed a few different things. An unnatural folding of the left sleeve on the man's robe, told of a knife and an arm sheath, and the waistbolt, strangely. Perhaps the bulges came from a sash that had all of his little small necessities tucked in there. And but it's like certainly not from the concealed shield belt. So he's seeing all these, like you said, these minutiae about his person right now to get all these details about it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I like this. I don't know the significance of this just yet. A copper pin engraved with the likeness of a hair clasp the neck of Kine's robe, and a smaller pin with a similar likeness hung at the corner of the hood. So again, we don't know what the significance of this animal is just yet. But you know, I I think that animal symbology has been uncommon, right? We have the hawk with the duke, we have Muadib, which again hasn't been fully explained, so we'll get to that when we get to that. But uh I don't think it's been made explicit yet, so I will not dive too deep into my thoughts on that just yet.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, Gurney pulls out his bowel set again, our minstrel warrior, Troubadoo warrior. So he asks Paul, like, hey, what do you want to hear? And he's like, You choose Gurney. And so he starts singing about a song of our fathers ate manna in the desert, in the burning places where whirlwinds came. Lord, save us from that horrible land, save us, uh save us from the dry and thirsty land. So again, very very referential to the fact that they are now also in a desert and are eating kind of this bare, barely life-sustaining substance that is water.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So if I may indulge, please. I mean, obviously, right? You know, manna in the desert is very much a reference to Exodus. And uh, the whirlwinds are interesting, right? Because we know here on Arrakis that we get these dust storms that are cutting and blinding and potentially lethal. In Exodus, the uh the Israelites followed a burning pillar of fire, right? So like like a whirlwind of fire, essentially, and it led them out of the desert. So I don't know, I think it's the there's an interesting contrast between this life-threatening and this potentially life-giving. Now, contrast that also with if you came too close to God, you could basically get uh death by holiness, right? If you were impure and came too close, then you would be basically d destroyed. Right? There's like all these passages where they say they couldn't look upon the face of God or you know, things like that, or they couldn't even look upon Moses' face after he had seen God's face, where it was just like it was too blinding, right? So and then we you know there's lots of passages where people offer the wrong sacrifice and kind of get destroyed and things like that by like violating commandments. So so I think it's it's a contrast between like, are they saying that the dust storms on Arrakis are also holy and leading you to something? Or is it just like a strict contrast? I don't know. But uh for those who wish to indulge in in such speculation.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. So Kyonskov compliments on the or not not even compliment, but comments on the scene.
SPEAKER_00Comments would be more accurate.
SPEAKER_01Uh you do travel with a white compliment of guards, my lord, are all of them such men of many talents? And Duke's like, Gurney, he's one of a kind. I like him with my I like him with me for his eyes. His eyes miss very little. And the planetologist frowns at that.
SPEAKER_00So we kind of get a little change here. So we get some more talk about like, you know, an eagle, you know, birds are adapted for this place, and some more talk about the desert. Has anyone ever walked out of the desert? And then the music stops. Not from the deep desert, but men have walked out of the second zone several times, survived by crossing the rock areas where worms seldom go. And the Duke says, Ah, the worms, I must see one sometime. You may see one today. Wherever there is spice, there are worms. Always, Hallecast? Always. So very interesting here. Absolutely. Uh then yeah, we get some more talk about worm ecology. Uh any anything though that you think is is particularly relevant here?
SPEAKER_01Probably the one thing that stands out to me specifically is so they have this reference to worm science. So that's kind of they have uh people in Thopters keeping eye for any sort of these telltale kind of tracks of worms as they come in. So usually it's like a deluge of sand kind of like rumbling along where the worm is burrowing. And that actually for me made a lot instantly made me think of the episode of Spongebob where they're hunting the Alaskan bullworm and Sandy sniffs the sand, like, worms. It's just of course in that one, it's just like a little very nice. Uh, he doesn't really give any more detail beyond that. And they try to clarify like if shield would be of any hope. And basically, Kind is like, if you activate a shield within a worm zone, you seal your fate. They ignore territory lines that come from far around to attack a shield. No man wearing a shield has ever survived such attacks, and basically, you know, drives them to that feeding frenzy, and with how large they are, you know, you're gonna get swallowed whole more or less. And so they talk about like, well, how can we attack or deal with worms? And so high voltage electrical shocks applied separately to each ring segment is the only known way of killing and preserving an entire worm. And I did think that was interesting. Each ring segment has a life of its own. Barring atomics, I know of no explosive powerful enough to destroy a large worm entirely, they're incredibly tough. So again, just worms are huge, they're deadly, and they inevitably come to all spice mining operations. Yes.
SPEAKER_00So so we got Paul's true sense. Shadings of tone, lying, health half-truths. If there's a relationship between spice and worms, killing the worms would destroy the spice. So again, right, we get feints within feints. People saying things, lying about things, who knows which is which. So there is all of this kind of uh talking around things, if you will. So it's very interesting. And he keeps telling them, like, why you know, like, well we've got uh transmitters. You know, rescue's on its way, and you know, it's like wouldn't be much use. Static electricity mass out many signals, transmitters short. It's been tried before. Worm if a worm's hunting you, there's not much time, no more than fifteen or twenty minutes most often. So what would you advise? The Duke asks, and I like this. And he's like, you'd follow my advice? Like, if I found it sensible, very well, my lord. Never travel alone. That's all. Never travel alone. Um yeah, basically it's like, just what do I do if my ship's down and there's no rescue coming? Just get away from the ship, hide. That's it. Wait for the worm to leave. Yep. And they get some more talk about uh desert features here. Walk softly, avoid drumsands, tidal dust basins, head for the nearest rock zone. There are many such zones, and you might make it. Uh so they tell us what what is drumsand? Slightest step sets it drumming. Worms always come to that. A tidal dust basin are depressions in the desert filled with dust over the centuries, so vast they have currents and tides. All will swallow the unwary who step into them. So, yeah, right? Just like the desert's trying to kill you actively. Very dangerous place. Yes. And then we get uh a couple things here. So Gurry sings us another little song, Wild Beasts of the Desert Do Hunt There, Waiting for the Innocence to Pass. Oh, attempt not the gods of the desert, lest you seek a lonely epitaph, the perils of the dash, it breaks off. But uh I think there's some stuff here, right? So wild beasts of the desert, very common in many forms of mythology. And um again, if we're kind of leaning into like the Exodus uh vibe a little bit here, the gods of the desert were demons, essentially, right? Uh and you have things like the scapegoat that was sent out of the camps from Israel to kind of you know bear the sins away from the camp, and it would be taken up by um by these demons here. I don't know. Lonely epitaph to me, uh it made me think of um that poet uh Ozymandias. Yes. You know, look on pawn my mighty works and uh tremble, and it's you know, just the little foot of the the f stone there. I think it's a Shelley poem, if I remember right. But uh yeah, it kind of gives you this flavor of like desolation, essentially.
SPEAKER_01Right, absolutely. And so they break off there because they see a dust cloud, which kind of is the signature of the what is this specific piece of machine called? The crawler as is harvesting for the spice. So yeah, they see this giant rolling yellow cloud on the desert surface. And one of your factory crawlers, Kynes said, it's on the surface, and that means it's on spice. The cloud is vented sand being expelled after the spice has been centrifugally centrifugally. Centrifugally. Okay, removed. There's no other cloud quite like it. And so, and then yeah, Kynes mentions four spotters watching for warm sign here, and that is a sand wave moving toward the crawler. So they'll have seismic probes on the surface too, but sometimes worms travel too deep for the wave to show. And then should it be a carry-all wing around, but I don't see it, and that's to literally carry the crawler away so that it will not be consumed by the worm. Right.
SPEAKER_00And so they're talking about uh Paul asks how big of an area uh territory does each worm have? Big ones, maybe three or four hundred square kilometers, small ones, and then he breaks off as the Duke points, and they see some ripples on the horizon, uh, and kind says worm, big one. And then they make some calls on the uh emergency frequencies there to uh to notify estimated contact 25 minutes. So now the clock is ticking on the worm hitting the crawler.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, they're trying to identify on the radio signal who is it that I spotted the worm because there's apparently a bonus associated with it. And so initially they're hesitant to kind of talk about who it was because, you know, security concerns. So you don't want people to know that the Duke is out there in case Harkin and agents are nearby to act on it. But we are kind of assuaged there, aware, you know, it is a local network, so literally only the workers would be aware of it. So Kynes lifts the microphone and says, spotter credit to the Duke Leto Atreides. Over. And then Halleck more or less tells him to tell them to divide the bonus among themselves, tell them it's the Duke, Duke's wish. And then the Duke kind of mentions side to Kynes. I forgot to mention that Gurney is also very talented in public relations. And so, as Gurney mentions, this lets the men know their Duke is concerned for their safety, word will get around. It's not likely they're harking to agents that hurt it. So again, we're creating goodwill while having relatively low risk physical harm. So it was a good bet, yes.
SPEAKER_00Um get closer, they see it's a rich, rich spice here. Um, and it's like, why are these guys still working? They're gonna work to the last minute to get as much spice as possible. Um and they're like, Where's the carry-all? Right? The carry-all's kind of like the big plane that lifts this thing off. And uh the Duke's like, well, shouldn't there be two standing by? And basically he tries to say it, kinds of tries to say this a couple times, and eventually gets it out, you know, you don't have enough equipment to do that, right? And uh the Duke's like, well, you know, we'll have to take the people with us in our Thopters and in the spotter Thopters, and uh basically says, like, well, we're a couple short. So basically they land and they start packing up everyone, and yeah. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a very tense scene because again, a lot of them are very hesitant to board the ship because, you know, it's a huge spice haul. They don't want to lose it to a worm. But it reminds me a lot of kind of like in some video games where you would have a little timer over in the top corner. It's like, hey, you got this much time left before you get a game over.
SPEAKER_00Right. Rescue X number of spice workers. Right. Yeah. Um, so they they kind of they land, they they pop out. I love this. Their nostrils were immediately assailed by the odor of cinnamon. Cinnamon, heavy and a pungent. So I don't know why they chose cinnamon, right? Because they talk they talk about the first time that they smelled it, it was cinnamon. Uh, I think it was Lady Jessica, maybe.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00But that it's different for everybody and different every time. But we keep getting a description of cinnamon, and maybe it's because us never having had spice before.
SPEAKER_01That's the only one. I I agree. It's definitely something that I noticed. I feel like as far as internal world building, that's the only one that seemed a little inconsistent. Yeah. Especially because, again, just alluding to a future scene, when they're having dinner, it's spiced with melange and they're described as being a cinnamon flavor.
SPEAKER_00So but I mean does kind of lean into a little bit of the Middle Eastern flair also, because you know, a lot of Mediterranean Middle Eastern cultures use cinnamon fairly heavily in their dishes. So it does, I think, lend a bit of that kind of cultural echo to that culinary bit there, at least to my mind.
SPEAKER_01Right. No, uh it makes a lot of sense just in terms of consistency with the audience, also. You don't want to be like, oh, it smelled like crab. It's like, why does it smell like crab now?
SPEAKER_00Well, that that would be very unappetizing. Especially on a desert planet. It was like, what does crab smell like, right? Yeah, not good. Not good. So anyway, they're they're tossing stuff out of their main sopter to make room for these guys, uh, try and cram some extra people in there. And uh basically, you know, the Duke's saying, you know, four over here, four under that ship there, you know, blah, blah, blah, right? Just like, you know, you go there, you go there. So being very direct and commanding. And uh, you know, Kine says, I hear the worm, but I can't see it. And then the others heard it, an abrasive slithering, distant and growing louder. And the Duke says, damn sloppy way to operate. So he's he's very frustrated, right? They and they talked about this in the uh the council meeting too, right? That their equipment's kind of on the ragged edge in terms of maintenance and numbers. And so this is kind of like the manifestation of that, essentially. Like we're seeing it go from kind of being a uh high-level strategic discussion to, hey, if we hadn't come, these men would have all died. Right. No, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01It is interesting also to note here that, you know, a lot of these crewmen are terrified because, you know, obviously they're minutes away from certain death, but the Duke is just frustrated. He's angry that, you know, things are being done in such an inefficient way without backups and safety measures put in place. And it's like, why are we risking all of this in such an offhand way when we need to protect what we already have? Yeah, where's OSHA? Right? Right. Well, you know what they say. It's uh rules are written in the blood of rules are written in blood. Is that something wrong that way? That sounds apt. Yes.
SPEAKER_00So everyone's crowded in there, Paul in a corner, surrounded by sweating men, perspiration, smelling of fear, and one of them says, The worm, it's almost on us, blast off, and the Duke says, We still have almost three minutes on the original contact estimate. Is that right, Kynes? And he says, Almost exactly, my lord. A cool one, this Duke. So, right, he's kind of again emphasized we're getting this kind of shift in Kynes' perception of the Duke as he's, you know, given the reward to the men, he's risked his own safety and that of Paul, his heir, in landing and picking up these men, overloading his Thopter, right? That's what Gurney says, like, you know, so are we gonna be able to take off in the soft sand with this much weight? And the Duke's like, hell yeah, this this thhopter can take it. That's exactly and so we get this fascinating description now. It's very iconic, I think. And uh what do they say here? The worm is now beneath the crawler, kind said, You're about to witness a thing few have seen. Flecks of dust shattered the sand around the crawler now. The big machine began to tip down to the right. A gigantic sand whirlpool began forming there to the right of the crawler. It moved faster and faster. Sand and dust filled the air now for hundreds of meters around it. Then they saw it. A wide hole emerged from the sand, sunlight flashed from glistening white spokes within it. The hole's diameter was at least twice the length of the crawler, Paul estimated. He watched as the machine slid into that opening in a billow of dust and sand. The hole pulled back. So, right, it's like basically this almost supernatural sort of thing, right? This giant hole just appears in the ground, everything is devoured, and then it's gone. And there's just like no remnant essentially.
SPEAKER_01It's it's Absolutely. And again, like as we've been discussing a lot of the terrain and everything in Arrakis, this definitely seems to be less than an entity and more just an aspect of the actual terrain itself. It's just with how large in scale it is compared to you know this this giant piece of machinery that they were using just a second ago.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I did.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, Kynes murmurs, Bless the Maker and his water, bless the coming and going of him, may his passage cleanse the world, may he keep the world for his people. And the Duke kind of questions him, what's that you're saying? And Kynes does not elaborate on it. But one of the workers whispers in the back, Liette, which is that name of a supposed deity that we had referenced in a previous chapter.
SPEAKER_00So I thought this was really interesting, the the Bless the Maker and His Water. Obviously, so I this is one of those phrases, right, that I did some searching. It is a Dune original, but it has a kind of a rhythm and phrasing to it that makes you think it might be from something else, right? And so if we think back to the um the scene with uh Jessica Lady Jessica and the Shadow of Mapes, right, where she says the maker, right? So we kind of get this connection here again, right? Like the maker, and we hear it now about this giant worm. So, and his water, the coming and going of him, may his passage cleanse the world. And again, this kind of echoes some biblical stuff as well, right? Where we get a lot of talk about things like living water. Um, you know, uh in some liturgical traditions, you get uh something called theophany, which is kind of like God's manifestation uh in certain situations, in particular like blessings of the water. And so this this passage cleansed the world, kind of like a like a baptism, right? Washing away of the sin. And so it has a lot of echoes of of kind of these Christian elements to it, I think. Obviously, different context and different implications when we're talking about a giant worm that's devouring things, but uh it gives you some insight, I think, into some of the ways in which the religion of the freemen might be inclined. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they talk a little bit to one of the men in there, a tall dune man who had come last out of the crawler, and kind of tells some of the other men who are cursing the worm and everything to stop coughing, like be quiet. Be you still coughs, you but worsen your cough. And so he thanks the Duke, and then right before they're about to take off, they see that two figures could be seen moving north away from the sand depression. They appeared to glide over the surface with hardly a lifting of dust to mark their passage. So the Duke immediately is questioning, like, who's that down there? And the Dune Man uh basically says, Two giants came along for the ride score. And they're like, Why didn't we know anything about them? Why weren't they included in here? But basically, they're just trying to like, oh, they're nobody. They're don't worry about them, they'll be fine. And so they were right beside when the worm came up, Paul said, How'd they escape? And so basically, Paul thinks about what has been said by both the doom and what kinds, and again, he sends half the truths and outright lies. The men on the sand had glided across the surface so surely, moving in a way obviously calculated to keep from luring the worm back out of its depths, Paul thought. So, again, just why why were there Fremen on the crawler? And why are these people lying about their presence there? Is definitely something for consideration.
SPEAKER_00Right. Basically he's like, Kynes is like, how can you tell a freeman? You can't tell someone's a freeman just by looking at them. And Paul basically just says they fit the description. And we get another one of these internal thoughts, the the Lysan al Gaib shall see through all subterfuge. And the the one Dunman said, they'd be dead now, most likely, young sir. Uh we should not speak unkindly. But he f Paul heard the falsehood in their voices and felt the menace that brought Halleck instinctively into guardian position. And then again, we get one of these kind of like pseudo-biblical sorts of things. Kynes says, When God hath ordained a creature to die in a particular place, he causeth that creature's wants to direct him to that place. So a little tension there, some deception, obviously. But uh, we get this final thought from Kynes here as far as basically the dukes won him over, in short. Yes. More concerned about the men than he was the spice, he risked his own life and that of his son, passed off the loss of a spice crawler with a gesture, the threat to those men's lives had him in a rage. Such a leader as that would command fanatic loyalty and would be difficult to defeat. And then he says, I like this Duke. So uh pretty action-packed scene there, I think, and uh very, very interesting, a lot of interesting stuff about the ecology and biology of worms and uh spice harvesting, which, you know, might not be everybody's cup of tea. But uh but I think it's neat and kind of gives us some information as we go forward in terms of the interactions with the Freeman and the worms and the desert in general. So kind of laying the groundwork for no pun intended, for further encounters in the desert.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. I think this does a lot to provide general context on the worms specifically. I mean, obviously, you know, we do get a firsthand look at the spice mining operation, which is crucial to the operation of the Imperial Empire as a whole, but obviously people care more about the worms. The worms, the people want worms.
SPEAKER_00So, what are your thoughts? Any uh final thoughts on today's chapter as well?
SPEAKER_01I feel like we're starting to get a little bit of payoff for a lot of the tension and buildup that we've been experiencing so far. I obviously, you know, with the assassination attempt against Paul, that was kind of the first step in this plan that had been outlined by the Harkonans back in chapter two. So this, while not one of the explicit steps, is kind of that telltale sign of like the Harkonnen's mucking things up for the Atreides to, if not financially, at least politically, kind of harm them as they're not able to produce the yield that's expected of their fiefdom.
SPEAKER_00And that is something we don't know just yet, this carry-all that was absent. Was it a technical failure? Was it sabotage? Um, you know, what caused it? Was it the machinations of the Harkinens, or was it just because the equipment was old and breaking down? That has not yet been revealed, and obviously we'll have ramifications depending on what the answer to that question is. But uh it definitely gave that unfortunate event gave an opportunity for the Duke to display his character to some potential allies. So yeah, we've had a lot of talking, and I think this was a nice example of where we go from like kind of like the high-level strategic conversation in the War Council, and then we kind of boots on the ground action happening, and kind of seeing the implications of all those things they were talking about with the equipment, with trying to do those recruitment efforts with the spice workers, all this kind of stuff. So we're kind of seeing this play out. All the conversations from the past few chapters are now leading to physical interactions. And yeah, it was I I think the the first big description of uh Sandworm always uh gives me gooswumps there. It's uh very, very dramatic. And you know, anyone who's watched like the recent movies, obviously they took huge advantage of that. Uh and I think they did a really good job with that in the recent Dune movie, well, recent being a couple years now. But uh more recent than the other one with Sting.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00But uh yeah, it's I think very, very dramatic, very cinematic, if you will.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was a great chapter. It was very, very action-packed, especially after kind of a little more dryer material of the various war council conversations that have been prior to it. So nice.
SPEAKER_00A lot of inner monologues, right? And we can see that even though the Duke had been having all these internal conflicts, when push comes to shove, right, he still is a man of command in action. And so he still he still acts in the way that one would expect an honorable leader to act. So we can see despite like his you know, thinking about his death and doubting, you know, like this Arrakis might be a terrible place and etc. etc., and being beset by enemies on all sides, you know, he's still he's still doing the honorable thing, taking the honorable course of action. All right. Well, I'm looking forward to this. We are, at least by my count, around twenty percent through the book so far. So I think we're making pretty good time. I've really been enjoying you. Having these conversations with you, Will, diving deeper into this, paying more attention to things instead of kind of just glossing over them a little bit, which is easy to do, but I f I find it very enriching and uh giving me a lot to think about in terms of you know various other references and asides that kind of get made throughout this and perhaps me leave leaves down some rabbit trails here and there, but it's it's fun. So thank you.
SPEAKER_01No, I f I am also really enjoying this. Uh like I am also reading this at a much slower pace than I'm used to. So as I kind of highlight and take notes on a few things here and there, it definitely is forcing me to look at things with a little more critical of an eye than I might normally afford it. So we're here for that's right. That's right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So for anyone who wants to reach out to us, you can email us at brothersreadingbooks at gmail.com, or you can find us on X at BrothersReading and drop us a line if you have notes for us, things that we missed, things that we've mispronounced, which I'm sure there are many, and uh any suggestions for future books or other conversation topics that we should hit, then shoot us a message. Otherwise, we will talk to you all next time. Talk to you later, Will. Talk to you later, Mike. Bye.
