You’ve got your pebbles and pea gravel and flaked rocks and pea-sand and sand and flour sand. That last is the soft stuff, soft as a child’s dreams, easy to sink a stilltent in. Ramsey always bragged, he did, bragged about how he got his best sleep when out on the lam avoiding authorities, said he could find the softest patch of flour sand for miles. “That’s how the Fremen slept,” he’d say. Ramsey would wake fresher than a pampered noble after a night on such a cushion.

Not me. No thank you. I conjure it wise to always sleep with a good stone or three jutting into your back. Sure, my spine is a twisted road of pain, but I’m still here. No one is going to creep up on me. My slumber is lighter than a dust mote.

Ramsey? He went and got his throat slit in his sleep. I’m sure he was having the sweetest dreams though.

The shipment, I’m afraid, is mostly lost. I barely made it out myself. Bandits gave chase, so we took the convey on a more direct route to Arrakis. In our flight, we drove over a patch of drum sand. It is a curious phenomenon, created by just the right confluence of factors (sand grain uniformity, compactness, etc.)

The effect is otherworldly. The strangest music. A single footfall can produce repeating drumming of a primordial cadence. Our convey created a cacophony that vibrated our innards. The worms soon came.

I and a few others made it to a set of rocks. The rest, goods and bandits a alike, were taken by the worms.

Everyone’s always talking about the worms. Keeping eyes and ears out for the worms. But that’s not the only danger out there. It’s not the only thing that wants to eat you. Even the ground wants to eat you!

While you’re looking for worms, it’s the quicksand and dust chasms that will get you. If you don’t learn to recognize their signs, it won’t matter if you walk without rhythm. The dust and the sand don’t behave on other planets like they do on Arrakis. The dust and sand don’t have no manners here. Heh-heh!

Buy me another round, and mayhaps I’ll tell you the trick to it.

One of the most confounding things about navigating Arrakis is the shifting sands. Storms can change the whole topography, erase or cover entire landmarks. Even on a seemingly calm night, you can wake up to find everything changed, your bearings gone with your dreams.

The Fremen, however, seemed to have no trouble navigating the desert, despite its mutable and capricious nature. They likened it to the face of someone you are intimate with. “Even when your mother frowns, you still recognize your mother,” is something of a proverb.

The Fremen are intimate with the face of the dunes, despite its changing expressions.