Sandtrout

Sandtrout were the docile larval form of the sandworms of the desert planet Arrakis. They were grey, leathery, and diamond-shaped, with no apparent head, eyes, or extremities except for retractable pseudopods called cilia, and they reached a length of just under nine meters. Their colonies trapped the water of Arrakis deep underground, and one such colony bonded with Leto Atreides II to set him on the Golden Path.

Nature and relationship with sandworms#

Sandtrout existed in vast colonies beneath the sands of Arrakis, locked body to body with coarse interlacings of extruded cilia until the whole became one massive placental organism capable of trapping entire bodies of water deep underground. Many died as part of the natural life cycle of the planet and in the violent spice blows that the trout themselves produced through their mounting fungal excretions. Trout that survived this process eventually clumped together to form a young worm, or "Little Maker," in effect a mobile colony organism that grew over many years into the colossal annelid lurking the dry depths of the Arrakeen sands. Any significant exposure to moisture, however, would cause an adult sandworm to die and rupture back into its original sandtrout components.

Tough and leathery in open air, sandtrout were more pliable and fragile in water. When squeezed they secreted a sweet green syrup that yielded a small energy boost. Being harmless, they were used in play by children in the Fremen sietches, who wore them as gloves or fixed them to sticks.

Origin on Arrakis#

Through his Other Memory, Leto Atreides II probed the many lives of his ancestors and came to realize that sandtrout were not native to Arrakis. Eons earlier the planet had been lush and wet, before the organisms arrived, proliferated, and encysted all its water, trapping it deep underground where they could eventually coalesce into full sandworms before migrating to drier layers of sand. This was consistent with physical evidence on Arrakis, such as salt beds that had apparently once been ocean floors.

The bond with Leto Atreides II#

As part of his Golden Path to ensure humanity's future, Leto allowed a small colony of sandtrout to attach themselves to his body, intending to extend his lifespan and eventually to release this symbiotic mass back into his terraformed planet to restore its desert state and its worm population. The first sandtrout formed a glove over his right hand, and the next ones linked their cilia until most of his body was covered.

Leto's balance of spice-saturated blood and prana-bindu biochemistry prevented the trout from rejecting him by tricking them into thinking he was a nutritious pocket of water, and it allowed him to survive the cilia that burrowed into his flesh and organs with no apparent pain or disability. After the bond succeeded, the colonial symbiote acted as an indestructible second skin and amplified his speed and strength to frightening levels. Over the next thirty-five centuries Leto's body gradually changed and enlarged, growing a powerful tail and losing the use of its legs until he was more worm than man, his metabolism a perfect hybrid of the two. In turn he modified his sandtrout, even imparting his own genetic memories, making them tougher and more adaptable so they could one day be settled on other worlds and thereby ensure the survival of his species and of the spice itself.