Pardot Kynes/DE

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Pardot Kynes (10121 AG-10175 AG) was the first planetary ecologist of Arrakis and mastermind of that planet's ecological transformation.

Biography

Kynes was born on Paseo, the only son of Leuis, a botanist specializing in interplanetary transfer, and Marique Kynes, a biologist whose impressive credentials included five years of secret postgraduate study with the Bene Tleilax. They were of the most prominent members of the Pasean scientific community.

Pardot majored in a field, synthesis of those of his parents, as the ecologist himself wrote in the introduction to his masterwork, Ecology of Dune:

"I chose to become a planetologist — if, indeed, that position may be said not to have chosen me — for the freedom of inquiry it provided. The ecology of a world is not made up only of flora and fauna; it encompasses weather, geology, even history as it applies to the balances present on that world. No area is beyond ecological consideration."

―Pardot Kynes

Kynes starte with scientific precision, enrolling at 15, the age of admission in the Imperial University on Kaitain and immersed himself in the study of planetary ecology for six years, spent in singleminded pursuit of knowledge to the exclusion of all other interests; Kynes did not even visit his homeworld.

Meanwhile in the Planetary University of Paseo, the infamous Milberne lecture happened (10141 AG), when a guest speaker unwittingly loosed a few Ecazian glowspores in the campus's main hall. 3000 students and other attendees, included his parents died of exposure to the deadly spores. Kynes was lucky enough to stay on Kaitain.

Career

In 10142 AG, Kynes graduated at the head of his class and entered Imperial service as a research assistant in an ecological survey station on Ecaz. He spent two years with the station, transferring to a similar station on Topaz, this time as a full-fledged researcher. He continued to advance during his tenure on that world and was appointed as head of the largest facility on Topaz in 10147 AG. Along with his promotions, Kynes was earning a widening reputation among his circles, seen as one of their leading lights, astonishingly competent for one so young.

During his stay there, Kynes, already familiar with the checks and balances of that world, witnessed the outbreak of Catha fungus on Ecaz in 10148 AG: The fogwood crop (one of Ecaz's most important exports) stood in danger of being completely destroyed by the fastspreading growth; Kynes recommended importing spores of Kuenn's Fungus, the nearest known equivalent to an organic catalyst, to halt the plague. The imported fungus crowded out the malignant growth while not harming the valuable fogwood, and Kynes was formally commended by House Xitan, the Ecazian administrator.

This commendation earned him the attention of Emperor Elrood IX who in 10149 AG offered him as a reward the position of Imperial Planetologist for Arrakis which was available. Kynes long considered the desert planet one of the most intriguing and understudied places in the Imperium, accepted at once. 28-year old Kynes' supporters considered his appointment long overdue, while his detractors thought him too young and inexperienced to handle such an important position.

On Arrakis

On Arrakis, Kynes had bad relations with the Harkonnens, holders of that fief. He wished only to be left alone to study the desert planet and to report his findings to his emperor. This the Harkonnens constantly interfered with, not least by their insistence that one or more of the House guard accompany Kynes at all times to which Kynes protested and avoided them whenever possible. Furthermore, the Harkonnens viewed Arrakis as a hellhole, fit only for producing spice and to keep their workforce subdued.

Kynes soon had a vision, becoming more and more convinced with each new study he conducted that Arrakis could be transformed into a gentler world, one on which humans could live without the constant threat of death from thirst and heat. By 10151 AG he had decided that the Fremen, capable of meeting the desert on its own terms, could possibly help him implement his scheme: they had innate ecological sense, did not bow in terror to the Harkonnens, paid no fai, no water tribute to the tyrants, and they were not above guiltlessly killing any outsiders foolish enough to invade their privacy.

In the spring of that year, on a walking excursion (this time without his guards), behind the section of the Shield Wall nearest the village of Windsack, Kynes stumbled upon half a dozen fully armed and shielded Harkonnen bullies toying with three Fremen youths, evidently planning to kill them leisurely, for sport. Kynes waded into the fray and killed two of the Harkonnen men with a slip-tip before anyone noticed him, while the Fremen had downed two of the bullies on their own. One of the youths was down as well, with a severed artery. Kynes dispatched one more Harkonnen, then, leaving the single survivor to his fate at the hands of the two Fremen. He gave the third boy medical attention he needed.

The ecologist represented to the youths a water burden they did not know how to repay. Confused, they took Kynes back with them to their unnamed sietch overlooking Wind Pass to decide what was to be done with him, an uncommon Imperial servant. There, Kynes felt himself completely in his element. He lectured the amazed, Fremen on a number of subjects — the best ways of anchoring dunes with grass, with Trait bearing trees might best be planted in the resulting greenbelts, pros and cons of qanat (open-trench) irrigation. The Fremen listened and debated what to do with this stranger who had saved three of them, and marveled at his complete disregard for his own safety.

Kynes was clearly admired by most of the sietch, but their security overrode all other considerations; Uliet, one of their most experienced fighters, was regretfully sent with a consecrated knife to carry out the sentence. Two watermen followed him, prepared to release the intruder's water for use by the sietch. As it was, the ecologist merely paused between sentences when Uliet approached. Then he turned his back, leaving himself open. Uliet hesitated, and in that moment, he took three steps and fell on his crysknife, "removing" himself as ordered. The stunned watermen carried him off to the deathstill, and Kynes continued his lecture as if nothing had occurred.

Terraforming Arrakis

Not one member of the troop entertained the notion of questioning such an obvious message from Shai-Hulud. Kynes was meant to lead them; they, to follow him. Beginning with a one kilometer square area located in the deep desert (around 40° south latitude), Kynes rdered that the tribes begin the work of settling into the hitherto-uninhabited region. The first tribe sent out died, almost in its entirety, leaving only a pair of messengers to report back. Kynes listened to them, took careful notes, and sent out another group, this one better prepared. Numbering one hundred fifty on departing for the south, the tribe was reduced by half within the first six months. But the settlement was established. Kynes, during this time, was not idle. Under the unsuspecting noses of his Harkonnen overseers, he smuggled desert Fremen into his Biological Testing Stations. The Fremen studied, conducted tests, took tools and equipment back to their sietches with them for use in setting up hidden windtraps and water basins. With agonizing slowness, the basins began to fill, the water gleaned from the air being supplemented by that from the death-stills. With the sole exception of combat water, which by Fremen law belonged to the victor of a hand-to hand fight, all water obtained by the sietches found its way into one of these basins. No Fremen would drink of it, no matter his extremity, on pain of losing his soul. It was the Water of Paradise, sacred beyond words. The Harkonnens knew nothing of Kynes's plan, nor of his Fremen. Behind the ecologist's back, jokes were made about his pleasure in associating with the "desert scum" — Jokes which became even more vicious when it was discovered that he had taken Mitha, a woman from Sietch Tabr, as wife — but no one dared mock him openly. Imperial servants, whatever their peculiarities, had power. Kynes had more than most, based on his popularity with the emperor and the natives of Arrakis. He was given a wide berth.

The first core samples taken from the trial zone, in 10152 AG, revealed that the sand itself could provide most of the nutrients the Fremen's plantings would require, since much of it was produced as a byproduct of sand-worm digestion. Dust presented a very real danger: even a relatively mild sandstorm could bury the trial zone. It was decided that some old, reasonably stable dunes would give the plantings their best chance — provided the problem of holding down the dust could be resolved.

While one group of Kynes trained Fremen wrestled with the sandfixing puzzle, others were studying weather patterns, area climates, and the myriad other pieces of the ecological puzzle. Particularly curious was the existence of a few plants the Fremen discovered and cultivated. A rare native root plant, for example, which grew above the 2500-meter level in the northern temperate zone, was often called "Gift to the Thirsty" because of its high water content: a tuber two meters long yielded half a liter of water, many times over the moisture that could be obtained from an equivalent weight in other vegetation. The water, the Fremen assumed, was not being drawn out of the atmosphere; somehow, the tubers were responsible for pulling it in. Where was it found? Kynes worked like a madman, correlating data between groups, performing his own research, and doing the social dances required to keep the Harkonnens — and the emperor — ignorant of the real purpose of his work. If the strain tired him, he never revealed it to his Fremen, who had come to consider him one of their umma, the brotherhood of prophets. It made no difference to Kynes what he was called, so long as progress was made.

Two last discoveries, arrived at within a month of one another, provided the data needed to begin thereal work. The first gave confirmation that what they planned to do was indeed possible: the verification by Kynes himself of the existence of a salt pan in the deep bled. This proved that there had been open water on Arrakis at one time; what had been, could be again. The second discovery concerned the sand-worm. These mighty creatures began their lives as sand plankton, then matured into the sandtrout form before becoming worm, It was the sandtrout phase — in which the "water-stealers" swam freely through the sand and sealed off all available water in the porous lower strata — which most worried Kynes. If these animals could seal water so effectively, what was to prevent them from completely drying out any area his Fremen chose to plant? His fears were proven groundless when captured sandtrout were loosed in one of the Testing Station gardens. Try as they might, the sandswimmers could not perform their usual function in an environment choked with plant roots. They exhibited two reactions: flight and death. More groups of Fremen were sent out, to establish other trial zones along the 40° line. With them they carried a variety of sophisticated drilling equipment and sandtrout-proof sheaths, as well as the usual material for constructing windtraps and temporary holding basins. If there was water to be found under the sand in their areas, they were prepared to dig for it; if not, the windtraps alone would have to suffice.

They also took seeds for a growth called poverty grass, a mutated version of the plant which had been engineered by Salim, one of Kynes's first Fremen students. Tested in the Station facilities, the new grass had shown an encouraging ability to survive on only basic nutrients, airborne moisture, and a minimum of supplementary watering. In each of the dozen planting zones, it was planted along the downwind sides of old dunes, where it stabilized the sand against the prevailing westerly winds. This started a cycle: each stabilized area accumulated a higher windward crest after each sandstorm, which would in turn be planted with poverty grass, until sifs, barrier dunes of more than 1,500 meters' height were produced. The work involved with the plantings was backbreaking, but moved quickly. In all but four of the test zones — in which the grass refused to take root — (fee barrier dunes were ready in a matter of months.

Kynes, in the meantime, had undertaken some new tabors. After weeks of careful inquiry and widespread bribery, he had arranged for an interview with Altenes and Garik of Ix, the two men responsible for governing the Spacing Guild. Without explaining his reasons, but using the Guild's sensitivities concerning its melange supply, Kynes arranged that ARRAKIS, Ecological Transformation of 50 the Guild not permit observation satellites to be placed above the deep desert on Arrakis. The large amount of spice which the Guild demanded as payment was not permitted to weigh against the need for the planted areas, known as palmaries.

With tile barriers in place, planting in the eight areas continued. Species from alt over the Imperium were brought in and tried, beginning with chenopods, pigweeds, and amaranth. Tough, stringy, and difficult for even Arrakis to kilt, this trio took only two years to provide bands of growth that were stable and, in the protection of the sifs, expanding outward.

This was the signal for slightly — but only slightly — more fragile plantings to be attempted. Scotch broom, low lupine, vine eucalyptus (originally adapted for the northern reaches of Caladan), dwarf tamarisk, and shore pine were placed at each site. The mortality rate of these newcomers was higher than that of their predecessors, in spite of the care the Fremen lavished on them, but those plants managing to survive were toughened by the trial and promised to produce strong seed. Even such limited results were only obtainable at a tremendous expense of time and labor. Each plant was carefully tended, pruned, and cautiously watered; each was provided with its own dew collector to keep the additional moisture needed to a minimum. (Dew collectors were smooth chromoplastic ovals which were placed over the pit containing the plant's roots. During the day, the chromoplastic was gleaming white — at night, transparent. It cooled rapidly following the change, and condensed air moisture which then trickled down to the roots.) Aside from the work directly involved with the plantings, there was much support production needed: dew collectors, stillsuits, cloth, and all the other necessities for the sietch had to be manufactured. Every member of the troop, at the earliest possible age, was expected to contribute. Fremen children, scarcely taller than the plants they policed, were taught to check dew collectors and remove dead or dying growths, and began instruction in the workings of Arrakis's ecology at age five. Kynes's own son, known by his troop name of Liet, was no exception. Mitha, the boy's mother, died shortly after his birth in 10156, and Kynes allowed the child to be brought up among the other children of Sietch Tabr. Liet, along with his peers, divided his time between in-sietch education and work at the various plantings.

Kynes, knowing himself to be under more or less constant surveillance by the Harkonnens, stayed away from the palmaries. But his was still the guiding hand, and when the reports from his Fremen (in 10160) indicated that the second-stage plantings were now thriving, he ordered the process advanced. Candellilla, saguaro, and bisnaga, or barrel cactus, were next in line, followed in 10163 by camel sage, onion grass, Gobi feather grass, wild alfalfa, burrow bush, sand verbena, evening primrose, incense bush, smoke tree, and creosote bush. Not all varieties took equally well at every site, but by 10167 each of the palmaries had more than tripled its original groundcover area, with increasingly large amounts of water being successfully tied into the root systems. Animals were imported next: kit fox, kangaroo mouse, desert hare, and sand terrapin to burrow and keep the soil aerated; desert hawk, dwarf owl, eagle, and desert owl to keep the burrowers from overrunning the sites; scorpions, centipedes, trapdoor spider, biting wasp, and wormfly to fill other necessary ecological niches; and the desert bat, to keep the insects under control.

Finding the proper balances among the new arrivals took only two years — the ecologist-Fremen having learned their lessons well — and the palmaries were readied for their most crucial stage. More than 200 selected food plants, including coffee, date palms, melons, cotton, and various medicinals, were smuggled in from offplanet and dispersed among the palmaries.

Knowing how vital to their goal the survival of these plants was, the Fremen worked harder than ever. In some cases, round-the -clock watches were set up over newly planted areas to ensure their safety from raids by the nocturnal rodents. Whenever a plant failed, the remains were as carefully examined as an autopsied emperor. Information was routed back to Kynes, chiefly through his son, who had become a sandrider at the usual age of twelve. Liet's powers of memory and observation were good, and over the next three years he carried increasingly encouraging reports to his father. Of the varieties planted, over a hundred had been successfully cultivated without major change. Of those which remained, seventy-five had been discovered to be adaptable to Arrakis, through grafting, crossbreeding, or alteration of seeds by various external stimuli. (The Fremen Salim, beyond doubt Kynes's star pupil, had assembled a group specializing in this type of treatment.) Only thirty-odd plants proved absolutely incapable of surviving.

As the cultivated areas expanded farther, however, a strange phenomenon was noticed. Protein incompatibility was poisoning the sand plankton which came in contact with the new lifeforms. At the desert edge of each palmary, a barren zone was formed, saturated with poisonous water which none of the Arrakis life would touch.

This was an unforeseen development, and one which Kynes did not feel competent to handle on other than an on-the -spot basis. Fabricating a story about an obscure type of plant he wished to investigate at an outlying sietch, the planetologist managed to elude the Harkonnens and arrange transportation to the south. (He made the twenty-thumper trip in a palanquin, carried by his Fremen, as though he were a wounded man or Reverend Mother, since he had never become a sand-rider.)

For three days after his arrival at the barren zone, Kynes locked himself into his yali, his personal quarters where no other would dare disturb him, and examined samples of the poisoned soil. On the morning of the fourth day, looking as haggard as a man who had walked in from the Great Flat, he emerged, and delivered electrifying news to the anxious Fremen.

The poison was a disguised blessing, a gift from Shai-Hulud! The addition of fixed nitrogen and sulfur to the chemicals produced by the decomposed sand plankton would convert the barren zone to rich soil in which their plantings could thrive. The speed with which the palmaries could expand would now be determined solely by the amount of labor the Fremen could afford them, and by the volume of water available.

The new advance cut down Kynes's projected timetable for the transformation considerably — to a mere three and one-half centuries. But the Fremen were a people who had learned patience at the hands of men with whips; they were content to wait, knowing that their. labors would buy glory for themselves and a living paradise for their descendants. The palmaries continued on the course Kynes had set, tenderly cared for by the Fremen and unknown to any outsiders for almost half a century. Kynes's death in 10175, in a cave-in at Plaster Basin, caused no deviation from the plan. Nor did the Harkonnen- Atreides warfare, the demise of Liet- Kynes (who had inherited his father's place with the tribes) in 10191 AG, nor even the ascension of Paul Muad'Dib Atreides in 10196 AG. When the soldiers of the Jihad left Arrakis it was with the knowledge that those left behind were also fighting for their cause by tending the palmaries.

Not until 10221 AG, when Leto II allowed himself to be transformed into the superhuman being who would rule for over three thousand yews, was Pardot Kynes's plan brooked. As wise and as farsighted as the planetologist had been, he had never imagined that his timetable might conflict with that of a god.

Leto II, just beginning his reign, needed time. He knew that he would continue, and perhaps hasten, the transformation which Kynes had initiated, but he had not yet decided at what pace it would be done. In 10221 AG he purchased a breathing space of several decades by destroying the qanats of four of the eight palmaries: Gara Rulen, Windsack, Old Gap, and Harg.

Deprived of their water, the still fragile plantings withered and died. This left only half the original number of green areas — Wind Pass, Chin Rock, Hagga Basin, and Tsimpe — to harbor Kynes's, and his Fremens', dreams.

The Fremen, terrified by the sudden destruction, but unable to face abandoning their work, concentrated their efforts on the remaining sites and hoped for peace.

Leto II, once his rule was firmly established, gave them rather more than. that. He brought the decades-old secret into the open, acknowledged the palmaries' existence, and made their advancement an Imperial priority. The Fremen were able to go on with their work at a pace which would have astonished and gratified Pardot Kynes. By 10260, fifty palmaries, each larger than any of the original sites, Were in various stages of completion; a century later, they had spread over enough of the 'Arrakis surface to establish the "self-sustaining cycle" which Kynes had originally predicted would occur. (He had estimated that three percent of the green plant element would have to be involved in forming carbon compounds to start the cycle working, and he was very nearly correct. The actual figure was 3.92 percent.)

The eight palmaries were named for eight of the Imperial Testing Stations; in this way, it was hoped, they could be mentioned without alerting the Harkonnens.

As the greenbelts and groves took over larger and larger segments of the planet, the native lifeforms, including the sandworms, were driven off into increasingly smaller reservations. The establishment of Kynes's cycle signaled the end for them: the last sandworm sighting occurred in 10402, and the sandworm was in its death throes.

The God Emperor stepped in once again, ordering the placement of Ixian weather-control satellites over the small area of the planet which remained desert. While weather satellites had been in use on Arrakis to one degree or another since the rule of Leto II's father, these were intended for a use unique in the planet's history. Earlier satellites had been brought in to help gentle the fierce climate; these were intended to bring back some of that lost ferocity, to preserve one small piece of Arrakis, the Sareer, in as close to its original form as possible.

The work for which the palmaries had been designed was completed, well ahead of the fondest expectations of the man who had first evisioned them. Arrakis, Dune, the Desert Planet, in a sense existed no longer.

In 10175 AG, Kynes and a party of Fremen were trapped in a landslide when the Plaster Basin cave warren — containing one of the secret water catches established under Kynes' direction — collapsed, killing all those within. The bodies were recovered and rendered for their water, according to the Fremen custom, but a radical departure was made in dealing with the disaster area itself. Ordinarily, the Fremen would have tunneled into the holding system, where the hoarded water was so carefully sealed that not even the tons of rock and sand which collapsed around it could have affected it; instead, a ceremony was held in which the concealed water was dedicated to the spirit of Pardot Kynes.

It was believed, according to one account of this unusual act, that the water would not return to the ground system until the ecological transformation was nearly complete. In this way, Kynes would be a participant in the process he had begun, long after his actions in the real world had been abruptly halted.

Bibliography

The greening of Arrakis is perceived as the ecologist’s gift to the Fremen, but he also left behind written work; books and articles that have provided generations of scholars with insights and information unavailable from any other source. They were preserved and rediscovered in the Rakis Hoard

• Ecology of Dune (10150 AG) considered the seminal work pertaining to Arrakeen ecology, is his best-known piece
• Notes of a Planetary Ecologist offers a detailed comparison of the ecological

systems of a dozen worlds, stressing the similarities underlying the differences necessitated by the changes in locale.

• Storm Systems and Their Effects provides with an astute analysis of the major weather patterns throughout the Imperial planets, with special emphasis on the role of storms in accelerating erosion and soil damage.

Character

Socially, even those who liked and admired him considered him cold and distant. In reality, it was not aloofness which prompted Kynes to so often remove himself from the company of others; it was, rather, a sense of time passing in which he had too much to accomplish to permit himself any distractions. His friends accepted this attitude, his enemies did not, and Kynes himself refused to let it concern him.

Sources

• ARRAKIS, Ecological transformation of