Dune

ORANGE CATHOLIC BIBLE: the “Accumulated Book,” the religious text produced by the Commission of Ecumenical Translators. It contains elements of most ancient religions, including the Maometh Saari, Mahayana Christianity, Zensunni Catholicism and Buddislamic traditions. Its supreme commandment is considered to be: “Thou shalt not disfigure the soul.”

ORNITHOPTER (commonly: ’thopter): any aircraft capable of sustained wing-beat flight in the manner of birds.

OUT-FREYN: Galach for “immediately foreign,” that is: not of your immediate community, not of the select.

P

PALM LOCK: any lock or seal which may be opened on contact with the palm of the human hand to which it has been keyed.

PAN: on Arrakis, any low-lying region or depression created by the subsiding of the underlying basement complex. (On planets with sufficient water, a pan indicates a region once covered by open water. Arrakis is believed to have at least one such area, although this remains open to argument.)

PANOPLIA PROPHETICUS: term covering the infectious superstitions used by the Bene Gesserit to exploit primitive regions. (See Missionaria Protectiva.)

PARACOMPASS: any compass that determines direction by local magnetic anomaly; used where relevant charts are available and where a planet’s total magnetic field is unstable or subject to masking by severe magnetic storms.

PENTASHIELD: a five-layer shield-generator field suitable for small areas such as doorways or passages (large reinforcing shields become increasingly unstable with each successive layer) and virtually impassable to anyone not wearing a dissembler tuned to the shield codes. (See Prudence Door.)

PLASTEEL: steel which has been stabilized with stravidium fibers grown into its crystal structure.

PLENISCENTA: an exotic green bloom of Ecaz noted for its sweet aroma.

POLING THE SAND: the art of placing plastic and fiber poles in the open desert wastes of Arrakis and reading the patterns etched on the poles by sandstorms as a clue to weather prediction.

PORITRIN: third planet of Epsilon Alangue, considered by many Zensunni Wanderers as their planet of origin, although clues in their language and mythology show far more ancient planetary roots.

PORTYGULS: oranges.

PRANA (Prana-musculature): the body’s muscles when considered as units for ultimate training. (See Bindu.)

PRE-SPICE MASS: the stage of fungusoid wild growth achieved when water is flooded into the excretions of Little Makers. At this stage, the spice of Arrakis forms a characteristic “blow,” exchanging the material from deep underground for the matter on the surface above it. This mass, after exposure to sun and air, becomes melange. (See also Melange and Water of Life.)

PROCES VERBAL: a semiformal report alleging a crime against the Imperium. Legally: an action falling between a loose verbal allegation and a formal charge of crime.

PROCTOR SUPERIOR: a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother who is also regional director of a B.G. school. (Commonly: Bene Gesserit with the Sight.)

PRUDENCE DOOR or PRUDENCE BARRIER (idiomatically: pru-door or pru-barrier): any pentashield situated for the escape of selected persons under conditions of pursuit. (See Pentashield.)

PUNDI RICE: a mutated rice whose grains, high in natural sugar, achieve lengths up to four centimeters; chief export of Caladan.

PYONS: planet-bound peasants or laborers, one of the base classes under the Faufreluches. Legally: wards of the planet.

PYRETIC CONSCIENCE: so-called “conscience of fire”; that inhibitory level touched by Imperial conditioning. (See Imperial conditioning.)

Q

QANAT: an open canal for carrying irrigation water under controlled conditions through a desert.

QIRTAIBA:see Ibn Qirtaiba.

QUIZARA TAFWID: Fremen priests (after Muad’Dib).

R

RACHAG: a caffeine-type stimulant from the yellow berries of akarso. (See Akarso.)

RAMADHAN: ancient religious period marked by fasting and prayer; traditionally, the ninth month of the solar-lunar calendar. Fremen mark the observance according to the ninth meridian-crossing cycle of the first moon.

RAZZIA: a semipiratical guerrilla raid.

RECATHS: body-function tubes linking the human waste disposal system to the cycling filters of a stillsuit.

REPKIT: repair and replacement essentials for a stillsuit.

RESIDUAL POISON: an innovation attributed to the Mentat Piter de Vries whereby the body is impregnated with a substance for which repeated antidotes must be administered. Withdrawal of the antidote at any time brings death.