Tuk Keedair

Tuk Keedair (d. 88 BG) was a Tlulaxa slaver and merchant who became the business partner of Aurelius Venport and co-founder of VenKee Enterprises. His accidental discovery of melange on Arrakis seeded one of the great commercial fortunes of the age, yet the latter half of his long life was spent in captivity among the very Zensunni people he had once sold into slavery. Following Tlulaxa tradition, he wore a long black braid for most of his life.

Slaver and discoverer of melange#

Tuk Keedair was present in the aftermath of the First Battle of Zimia in 203 BG, where he supplied the injured with replacements, among them the soldier Tercero Xavier Harkonnen. Soon after, he visited Harmonthep, assaulted a Zensunni village, and captured slaves whom he sold to the planet Poritrin, including the boy Ishmael.

On a trip to Arrakis in 202 BG, Keedair accidentally discovered the spice melange. He introduced it to his colleague Aurelius Venport, and their joint business venture, VenKee Enterprises, brought it to various groups within the League of Nobles. The enterprise became enormously successful on the strength of the spice trade.

The space-folder and the desert#

Keedair played a part in Norma Cenva's plans for the space-folder, remaining on Poritrin at the installation where the prototype vessel was to be built. While Venport was away on Arrakis settling the problem with Selim Wormrider, Tio Holtzman, Cenva's former mentor, persuaded Lord Niko Bludd to shut down the project and expel both Cenva and Keedair from the planet. At the same time the Zenshiite slave Aliid was planning a second slave revolt, while Ishmael, who by chance labored under the very man who had captured him, sought a way to escape the coming massacre.

After the project was forcibly closed and Cenva removed from Poritrin, Keedair stayed behind with some of the slaves to salvage what they could. When the slave revolt broke out, the rebels forced him to pilot the prototype space-folder, and the ship crashed on the desert planet Arrakis. In his desperation Keedair cut off his braid. He was then made to accompany two slaves, Rafel and Ingu, on a scouting vehicle; Rafel forced Tuk out and left him to get lost in the desert, judging it a fitting fate for a slaver, but the pair were soon devoured by sandworms.

Keedair was found by Selim Wormrider's tribe and told them about the escaped slaves. Ishmael, now the leader of the slave team, let him live. In the years that followed Keedair remained the tribe's prisoner, and although he had the chance to leave for another planet, he never did. Ishmael would never consider him a friend, yet the two spent time together over spice coffee. Tuk Keedair was the eldest man of the tribe when he died some years later, in 88 BG.