STILLTENT
The earliest versions of this portable desert dwelling were developed by the Zensunni nomads sent to Ishia (second planet of Beta Tygri) in 5295. Although the Ishian environment was far gentler than that to which the nomads were accustomed — that of Salusa Secundus, where their people had been held in slavery for nine generations — it was hot, arid, and unforgiving. Water in this desert ecology was a precious commodity, not to be wasted; the stilltents were intended to help minimize that waste.
Crude as the first units were, they served the Ishian Zensunni's purposes. A chromo-plastic outer layer turned a reflective white during the hours of sunlight, then reverted to its normal transparency at night. The water which precipitated out on the cooled surface trickled down into thin ducts built into the bottom edges of the tent and was drawn into catchpockets located at the corners. The process was repeated to a lesser degree on the inside lining: the temperature drop carried through sufficiently to draw a percentage of the moisture lost by the inhabitant's breathing from the warmed interior air. A small reclamation still carried with the tent served to process urine, but solid wastes were most often used as fertilizer.
Once the Zensunni — now called Fremen — were relocated on Arrakis in 7193, they realized that the Ishian design was primitive and inefficient. The first change involved size. On Ishia, stilltents had most often been used as semi-permanent homes and were constructed to allow room for standing, walking, and storage. An Arrakeen stilltent, on the other hand, was intended only as a temporary place of shelter for Fremen caught outside the safety of their sietch. They were kept small, providing those inside with barely more space than was needed to sit fairly comfortably, to stretch out and sleep, and to store small amounts of water, stillsuit repair kits, and other items vital to desert survival.
The tent's shape changed with its size. Rather than rising to a central peak, the new stilltents were built with a curved roof; viewed from the end, the tent looked like a cylinder whose lower surface had been flattened where it met the ground. Gone, too, was the outer door-flap used in the Ishian model: a sphincter-seal fashioned of clear plastic had replaced it, allowing those inside to see out while preserving the stilltent's integrity. Interior flaps could be used to block off the seal and shut out unwanted light.
The most striking changes, however, involved the stilltent's ability to conserve moisture. The fabric making up the bulk of the tent was the same as that developed for the Fremen stillsuits, the garments which were capable of holding their wearer's moisture loss to under a thimbleful a day. Cutting through a sample of that cloth would expose numerous triumphs of microconstruction, all aimed at keeping the Arrakeen environment from snatching away precious water. The layer meant to be kept on the interior of the tent (or, in a stillsuit, next to the skin) was porous and allowed perspiration, exhaled moisture, and the like free passage. The next two layers contained heat-exchange filaments so effective that a stilltent in good repair remained an average of ten degrees cooler than the outside temperature, and salt precipitators which kept the saline level of the reclaimed water well below the one-hundred-fifty ppm mark. The fourth layer trapped the water squeezed out by osmotic pressure and channeled it into the catchpocket tubes; this layer, the tubing, and the catchpockets themselves were constructed of plastic whose smoothness came from adjustments at the molecular level, to which water could not adhere. The final, outermost layer permitted the passage of heat (one way) and most gases but was completely impermeable to water.
It should be noted that this fabric, as exquisitely designed as it was, could not function as effectively when made into a tent as when it was made into a stillsuit. The stilltent protected its users from losing moisture which left their bodies during respiration, as well as that which escaped from their palms, faces, and other uncovered bodily surfaces. It was not constructed to process wastes or to reclaim all of a body's perspiration, and those inside were thus forced to remain in their stillsuits. In spite of this slight disadvantage, a Fremen stilltent was still the safest shelter for those forced to remain in the desert; the copies produced by village factories were greatly inferior. This made authentic stilltents valuable trade items, and their sale to outsiders provided a handsome income for a number of sietches. There was one group, however, to whom the fiercely independent tribes refused to offer stilltents: the oppressive Harkonnens.
The Harkonnens recognized the excellence of the Fremen products, even as they scorned and persecuted their makers. In 10185 a simultaneous raid on three northern sietches (Tuono, Remmel, and Ammit) was ordered by Count Glossu Rabban. The inhabitants appeared to have fled with unusual haste, leaving behind most of their factories' products. The troops carried off all they found, including a large number of stilltents.
In what must have seemed a pleasing bit of irony to the planetary governor, the captured stilltents were issued to the next group of soldiers sent out to round up the people Rabban referred to as "desert scum." It was not until the troops failed to return that they were sought out and the stilltents exposed for the Megarian variation they were. Once they were sealed off, with the soldiers inside, they began to build up heat: the filaments which would normally conduct heat outward instead drew it into the tent as the outside temperature rose. The rise triggered a change in the sphincter-seal, constructed in these tents from a plastic which first flowed, then hardened in heat; by the time the interior became uncomfortably warm, the door was sealed and impossible to open.
The fabric layer which was supposed to carry reclaimed water had been changed as well, as the panicked troops learned when they attempted to cut their way out. Tightly woven shigawire, impervious to any blade the Harkonnens carried, had replaced the ultrasmooth plastic.
Those who tried blasting an exit with their lasguns were rewarded only by a faster death when the energy-reflecting plastic lining of the interior converted over eighty percent of the guns' power to heat; the rest were left to bake slowly or to suicide.
When the tents were opened by the search party — they cut easily enough with a lasgun beam directed from outside — and a report of what was found inside relayed to Count Rabban, the results were predictable. A pogrom (largely futile, as the tribes were expecting it and had gone into hiding) was launched against the Fremen, and Harkonnen troops were ordered to destroy, rather than use, any sietch products they discovered in its course.
The Fremen's reaction to the successful trap was equally predictable. An expression dating back to this period illustrates it well: "Three things we know to be useless — sand to a thirsty man, water to Shai-Hulud, and stilltents to Mudir Nahya." (Mudir Nahya, the name given Rabban by the Fremen, translates roughly as "Demon Ruler.")
Until the arrival of the Atreides, there is no record of anyone connected with the ruling house on Arrakis making any further attempt to use a Fremen stilltent.
C.W.
Further references: ARRAKIS; FREMEN; RABBAN, COUNT GLOSSU; STILLSUIT; Anon., Kitab al-Ibar: Manual of the Friendly Desert, Rakis Ref. Cat. 1-Z288.
STOLEN JOURNALS
Two volumes of Leto's Journals, stolen from the Citadel in 13712 by Siona Ibn Fuad al-Seyefa Atreides.
For nearly two millennia, these volumes provided the only autobiographical data available on Leto the God Emperor.
Their theft by Siona, daughter of Moneo Atreides, was a daring exploit; no others had ever breached the Citadel defenses and escaped alive. But the price she and her companions paid for the Stolen Journals and the Citadel plans was high. Of ten rebels, only Siona survived. The others were brought down by Leto's patrolling D-wolves before they could reach safety across the Idaho River. Only one bitter satisfaction was given each of them as he or she was dragged down: each had been injected with Nyilatin, a drug harmless to humans but thought to be poisonous to the highly inbred D-wolves. If one of them fell to the animals, it might at least decrease the pack pursuing the rest. Only Siona was able to discover that it worked, and only by deduction rather than direct observat
ion.
The rebels believed they found the books by chance. But knowing now that Nayla, one of Siona's most intimate confidantes, was actually an agent of Leto, this seems unlikely. Nayla undoubtedly informed her master that the rebels intended to infiltrate the Citadel and steal a copy of its plans for later use. But Leto, with his ridulian crystals, had no need of the less permanent plastivellum copies. The plastivellum, lighter than conventional paper copies, was several times heavier than the crystal originals, and the factor of weight suggests another theory.
Did Leto plant the volumes near the Citadel plans, knowing that Siona and her group were planning to steal them? Many of his references to Siona in other volumes indicate that he constantly tested her, usually without her knowledge. Since he knew the end was coming, he may have seen the venture as a test of another sort: its execution would show him what kind of leader Siona might be expected to become. Could she inspire companions to follow her in what was almost certainly a suicide mission, could she get the group through the defenses and back again, could she recognize the coded Journals as items equally as important as the plans she had come to steal? (It mattered little whether Siona herself realized initially what the volumes were or not; what would matter would be her willingness to chance carrying off the extra weight.)
Besides testing Siona, did Leto in fact desire the Journals to be taken and decoded? He is known to have feared that his actions would be misunderstood in times to come unless he arranged for revelations to be made. His speech with Holy Sister Quintinius Violet Chenoeh, recorded in the Bene Gesserit's papers and made public after her death, was one attempt to reveal his intentions to his subjects. This convenient placement of two of his Journals may well have been a second.
Within a few weeks of the Citadel raid, Siona had arranged for copies of the stolen books to be sent to the Bene Gesserit school in Wallach IX, to the Spacing Guild High Command (via its representative on Arrakis), and to the Inquisitors of Ix. Each group was to attempt a translation, with all results to be reported in full to Siona; their cooperation shows how seriously they regarded the effort.
The rebels assumed that the Ixians would find the cipher's key first. After all, they had provided not only the paper but the dictatel that Leto had written them with — that might seem a headstart of sorts. But the Guild, approaching the problem from a direction the mechanically minded Ixians did not consider, succeeded in breaking the God Emperor's code.
Siona originally received only the Guild Key and a translated copy. After careful study of the key and the translation, she became curious enough to ask how the intricate cipher had been solved. The answer — given only after clearance from the Guild High Command — impressed even the zealous Siona with the importance the Guild had placed on solving the problem first. To achieve their primacy, they had spent much of their most precious coin: melange. The most sensitive Steersman available had been given a dose of spice equivalent to that needed to pilot a dozen heighliners. He was then told what was required of him and left alone with the Stolen Journals.
The Key was completed within the day. The Steersman, accustomed to using melange-induced prescience to pick out the optimum course for a ship, focused that same power on finding the one true solution to the cipher. The two activities were more similar than might have been expected, because Leto had used a code with several solutions, but only one — that recorded in the Key — deciphered both volumes completely and consistently.
In 13730, six years after Leto's assassination, Siona arranged for the publication of an abridgement of the Stolen Journals. That version, standard for centuries, lacked all but the most savage introspective passages and focused on the violence that often served as the foundation for Leto's Peace. A history of subjugation, it produced its desired effect by creating in its readers an overpowering anger against the inhuman monster so long dominant. One of Leto's most frequent prophecies — that he would be remembered for many generations as Shaitan — was fulfilled, as the Stolen Journals combined with the Oral History to give liberated humanity a portrait of the God Emperor as a heartless manipulator.
C.W.
Further references: ATREIDES, LETO II, JOURNALS OF; ATREIDES, SIONA; Radi Kharlan-Atreides, The Holy Books of the Divided God, ed. Kwin Shendal (Diana: Synonym).
SUK SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
Founded on Kaitain in 2401 by a group of Tsai practitioners and financed by the Emperor Kenric III al-Kam. Originally established as the Imperial Tsai Medical College, it was later renamed the Suk School of Medicine to honor Dr. Faisan Suk, physician to the Imperial Family during the reign of Corrin VIII (2727-2756). The school was charged with training physicians who could be trusted to attend the Imperial Family and the families of the Great Houses. The founding of the school followed an unsuccessful plot to assassinate the entire Imperial Family of Kenric's grandfather, Ismal Kenric II, by the court physician, one Sharoni Silifant. Dr. Silifant attempted to deliberately mistreat "accidental" wounds and to administer subtle poisons of her own concoction.
The founding physicians of the Suk School were trained in the practice of Tsai medicine, whose principal mode of treatment was the administration of herbal and other natural remedies. The Tsai practitioners were so skilled at recognizing plants as medicines or poisons that one could travel to a strange planet with only his few personal possessions and produce an entire pharmacopoeia from the planet's natural products. Practitioners were trained to recognize pharmaceutical compounds through smell, taste, and simple chemical tests.
The Suk School produced more than just Tsai practitioners, however. In response to the Imperial charge, the concept of Imperial Conditioning was developed. Those Tsai practitioners who successfully received Imperial Conditioning were thought to be incapable of taking human life. The conditioning was thorough and expensive, but, as history was to show, ineffective.
The most complete and costly level of conditioning was that which trained a physician to loyalty to a particular Imperial Family. The other Great Houses were usually content with the second level of conditioned physicians, i.e., those with complete conditioning against taking human life and overtones of loyalty to one's employer, whoever it might be. The Suk School also produced many fine nonconditioned Tsai practitioners during this time. Most of these were individuals who could not pass the rigors of Imperial Conditioning.
Trainees for Imperial Conditioning were selected before the age of two years on the basis of stringent intellectual and physical criteria. The parents of those children who failed during their training were given the choice of removing them from the school to follow other vocations or allowing them to remain to be trained as Tsai practitioners without Imperial Conditioning.
Imperial Conditioning was not so much the creation of a "pyretic conscience" as it was a triumph of self-deception and public relations. No doubt the Suk School administration was sincere in their belief in the effectiveness of their training; they too were victims of their own salesmanship. The program began with lessons in self-control from earlier childhood, in courses like Environmental Alteration, in which the child had hung around his neck a baklava, coated with powdered sugar so that even a furtive lick could be detected, which he was forbidden to eat until later. The three- or four-year-old learned to reduce his tensions by placing the sweet in a locker and diverting his attention with a game. In a year or so, in Self Alteration, the student might come home from a day of work to find that whether he ate or fasted at suppertime depended on the fall of a die. Under close scrutiny, the student's reactions were evaluated: complaints or anger were punished, resignation or humor rewarded. The idea was to direct any aggression against chance itself, rather than against the lucky.
Annoyances and frustrations were increased. Many students buckled under the pressure; salvageable ones dropped to level-two conditioning; the others were dismissed. Group loyalty — beginning with the smallest unit, the class — was fostered in courses like Sharing, in which for a week the student was forbidden to feed himself:
he depended for his sustenance on others. Much ingenuity went into these courses: in Sharing, the student sat for meals at a table down the middle of which ran a high screen. Two hand-sized holes in the screen fronted each place; the food and the classmate to be fed sat on the other side. In Sensory Pleasure, students received instruction and practice in group sex-play. Solitary and dual sex were not forbidden, but were subjected to intense and constant ridicule; and of course with adolescents, the sex-drive was a powerful vehicle for teaching self-control.
Students worked at communal tasks from the earliest age, and the jobs were designed to support the community, to reinforce desirable behavior, and to impart specific knowledge all at once. For example, students learned anatomy in two places: in the slaughterhouse, a dim, smelly shed in which at random intervals loud crashes, wails of sirens, or shrieks of pain would echo; and in the hospital, a quiet, airy building in which soft music played. Hospital instructors were patient and outgoing; the slaughterhouse instructors were brutal and prone to convincing fits of rage.
From their earliest years, students were taught to associate pleasure with the Imperial and Great House families: the nursemaids of the preschoolers were selected for kindness and physical resemblance to the younger members of the Imperial household. All rewards were given in the presence of holograms of the Emperor and na-Emperor. Candies and presents distributed on festive occasions were labeled "from House Wikkheiser," "from House Alman," and the like.
By the age of sixteen, the Imperial Conditioning trainees sincerely believed they were unable to take a human life. At that age, the medical education of the student continued with advanced studies in Anatomy and Physiology, followed by courses in Immunology, Psychology, and Tsai Pharmacology. Special elective courses in Ultra-Spare Physiology, Advanced Tsai Pharmacology, Exotic Infectious Diseases, and Poison Detection were also offered. Another important part of the training was that of fai-kai. a form of awareness of one's body resembling the prana-bindu training of the Bene Gesserit, although not as extensive. This important part of the training of a conditioned Suk physician provided the technique of harqi, the ability to stop one's heart and respiratory mechanism, resulting in death. Thus the Suk physician had the means of suicide if pressure to take a life or betray a trust became intolerable. It is well documented that physical torture, for instance, was ineffective in subverting a Suk physician with Imperial Conditioning. (See the cases of Alidan ben Gozar and Stanley Wing Ling, in Fanna Jahid's History of the Suk School of Medicine.)
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