worms introduced -- DUNE Novels Discussion Board

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04/25/24 15:13:25 [ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, [2], 3, 4 ]

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Date Posted: 00:19:45 08/28/03 Thu
Author: Ghanima
Subject: worms introduced

pages 31-32 Ace edition:
Leto and Ghanima are sitting outside of Sietch Tabr, sent there by Alia for the immediate arrival of Jessica:

"I stand between fish and worm," he murmured.
"What?:
He repeated it louder.
She put a hand to her mouth, beginning to suspect the thing which moved him. Her father acted thus; she had but to peer inward and compare.
Leto shuddered. Memories which fastened him to places his flesh had never known presented him with answers to questions he had not asked. He saw relationships and unfolding events against a giant inner screen. The sandworm of Dune would not cross water; water poisened it. Yet water had been known here in prehistoric times. White gypsum pans attested to bygone lakes and seas. Wells, deep-drilled, found water which sandtrout sealed off. As clearly as if he'd witnessed the events, he saw what had happened on this planet and it filled him with foreboding for the cataclysmic changes which human intervention was bringing.
His voice barely above a whisper, he said: "I know what happened, Ghanima."
She bent close to him. "Yes?"
"The sandtrout..."
He fell silent and she wondered why he kept referring to the haploid phase of the planet's giant sandworm, but she dared not prod him.
"The sandtrout," he repeated, "was introduced here from some other place. This was a wet planet then. They proliferated beyond the capacity of existing ecosystems to deal with them. Sandtrout encysted the available free water, made this a desert planet...and they did it to survive. In a planet sufficiently dry, they move to their sandworm phase."

Perhaps Leto is the sandtrout, and mankind is to be the worm?

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Replies:

What if..... -- Crysknife, 09:06:20 08/28/03 Thu