Arrakeen conservatory

The Arrakeen conservatory was a luxurious private garden built on the roof of the government mansion at Arrakeen, on the desert world of Arrakis. Crowded with exotic wet-climate plants and fed by a fountain that squandered enough water to support a thousand Fremen, it was regarded by the desert people as anathema, a weirding room. Yet the same room became bound up with the dream of Liet-Kynes for a green Arrakis.

Description#

The conservatory stood on the roof of the government mansion at Arrakeen and was concealed behind an oval outer door secured with a palm lock. Filter glass converted the harsh white sunlight of Canopus into a softer yellow light. The private haven measured about ten square metres, and every available space within it was crowded with exotic wet-climate plants, most of them dwarf varieties kept in pots or severely pruned: mimosa, a flowering quince, dwarf cypresses and cedars, sondagi (the fern tulip of Tupali), a green-blossomed pleniscenta grown for its fragrance, a green-and-white-striped Akarso from Sikun, false orchids, a golden kowhai, flowering fogwood from Ecaz, giant mosses and broad-leaved aspidistras, and roses notable for their varieties of pink, white, blue, and variegated bloom.

At the centre stood a small low fountain with fluted lips. The water it held could have supported about a thousand Fremen, yet here it was given over to the plants. A clock-set servok with pipe and hose arms distributed water among the fern trees and rubber plants, and an elaborate robotic mulcher and dresser performed automatic gardening routines. That machine's design fell well outside the Butlerian limits, and it was programmed to remain concealed within the wall whenever humans were present.

History#

The conservatory was constructed by governor Tsimpo as a bridal present to his fourth wife, Hawtina, who came from the water planet Humidis. To the Fremen the room was anathema for its wasting of precious water as a status symbol, and they called it a weirding room, fit only for witches. The head housekeeper, the Shadout Mapes, regarded it with loathing.

The chatelaine Lady Fenring left a warning message for her Bene Gesserit sister in the room. Jessica found a note that cryptically directed her to a hidden message on the underside of a fan leaf overhanging the table, warning of danger and of the hazard of overindulgence when near something desirable. The warning could not prevent the hunter-seeker attack on Paul Atreides, though the fountain shorted out the device's motor.

Symbol of a green Arrakis#

Duke Leto Atreides I ended the humiliating custom of water-slopping at government dinners. When the water-shipper Lingar Bewt challenged him to extend that principle to the conservatory, Jessica answered that they intended to keep it in trust for the people, dreaming that someday the climate of Arrakis might be changed enough to grow such plants anywhere in the open. The response impressed Liet-Kynes, for it matched his own dream exactly, and he asked her directly whether she brought the shortening of the way.

After Paul and Jessica reoccupied the Arrakeen house, Jessica returned to the weirding room out of longing for Caladan, and Stilgar ben Fifrawi, by then a creature of the Lisan al-Gaib, the Giver of Water, responded to it with irreverence. As the dream of duplicating the conservatory's conditions across a whole planet took hold, Liet-Kynes warned that growth had to be treated with care or it would produce unfavourable conditions. During the Fremen Jihad, Paul sent the Fremen offplanet to behold rivers, lakes, oceans, and jungles, and then to seek their reduplication on Arrakis, until Arrakis itself became a larger wet-planet conservatory.