Even in the wasteland, with wind whipping around him, Selim’s luck continued to hold. Survival itself became a wondrous game out in the desert.

Leaving the dead sandworm behind, he’d tried to find a small cave or gully in the rocks where he could crouch from the approaching storm. Desperately thirsty, Selim poked around for any signs of human habitation, though he doubted any other man had ever set foot so far out in the arid wilderness.

Certainly no one who had lived.

After wandering from planet to planet, the Zensunni had come to Arrakis, where they scattered in widely separated settlements. For several generations, the scavenger people had scraped a meager existence from the desert, but only occasionally did they venture from their protected areas, fearful of giant worms.

The wild sandworm had taken Selim far from the spaceport, far from the vital supplies that even the most resourceful Zensunni would require. His prospects for survival seemed bleak indeed.

So when he stumbled upon an ancient botanical testing station camouflaged in the rocks, Selim could hardly believe his good fortune. Undoubtedly, it was another sign from Buddallah. A miracle!

He stood before the domed enclosure erected by long-forgotten ecologists who had studied Arrakis and found it wanting. Perhaps a few Old Empire scientists had lived here and recorded data during a storm season. The rugged structure consisted of several low outbuildings built into the rocks, half-disguised by time and windblown sand.

As the howling tempest peppered him with stinging sand, Selim scrambled around the abandoned station. He saw tilted weather vanes, dented wind collectors and other data-gathering devices that looked long dead. Most important, he found an entry hatch.

With sore hands and aching arms from his worm-riding ordeal, Selim pounded against the barrier, searching for a way inside. He scooped powdery debris away, looking for some sort of manual mechanism, since batteries would have long since died. He needed to get into the shelter before the storm wind slammed into him with full intensity.

Selim had heard of such places. A few had been found and raided by Zensunni scavengers. These self-reliant stations had been placed on Arrakis during humanity’s glory days, before the thinking machines had taken over, before Buddislamic refugees had fled to safety. This automated facility was at least a thousand years old, probably more. But in the desert, where the environment remained unchanged for millennia, time ran at a different pace.

Selim finally located the mechanism that controlled the hatch. As he had feared, the power cells were dead, providing only enough of a spark to make the door groan open the barest crack.

The wind howled. Blown sand hung like fog on the horizon, obscuring the sun. Dust tingled against his raw ears and face, and Selim knew it would soon become a deadly scouring.

Growing more desperate, he wedged his sandworm tooth into the dark opening and used it as a pry bar. The aperture widened a little, but not enough. Cold, stale air gasped out. He used the aching muscles in his arms, dug his feet against the rocks to throw his body weight into the effort, and pushed hard on the makeshift lever.

With a last groan of resistance, the hatch grated partway open. Selim laughed and tossed the curved worm fang into the interior, where it made a tinkling clatter on the metal floor. He squirmed through into the station, heard the muffled roar of the sandstorm increasing outside. It was on top of him.

Impeded by wind and blown sand, Selim grasped the lip of the hatch and pushed hard. Incoming sand fell through a grating in the floor, into a receptacle below. He needed to hurry. The wind let up for only a second, but that was enough. He got the door shut, sealing himself in, away from the violent weather.

Safe . . . unbelievably safe. He laughed at his good fortune, then gave a prayer of thanks, more sincere than any he had uttered in his life. How could he question such blessings?

Selim used the shaft of wan daylight to look around. Luckily, the abandoned station had plaz windows. Though scratched and pitted from prolonged exposure, they allowed fading illumination inside.

The place was like a cave of treasure. Guided by the dust-filtered light from the windows, he found a few old glowstrips which he coaxed into brightening the small shelter. Then he ransacked cupboards and storage vaults. Much of what remained was useless: unreadable data-plaques, dead computerized recording systems, strange instruments that bore the names of archaic corporations. He did, however, find capsules of well-preserved food that had not deteriorated even in all the time this facility had been abandoned.

He broke open a capsule and ate the contents. Though the flavors were unusual, the food tasted wonderful, and he felt energy seeping back into his weary flesh. Other containers held concentrated juices, which were like ambrosia to him. Most valuable of all, he found distilled water, hundreds of literjons of it. Undoubtedly it had been collected over the centuries by automated moisture extractors left behind by the long-ago scientific expedition.

This was personal wealth beyond anything Selim had imagined possible. He could pay back the brackish water he’d been accused of taking from the tribe a thousand times over. He could return to the Zensunni as a hero. Naib Dhartha would have to forgive him. But Selim had never committed the crime in the first place.

While Selim sat comfortable and satisfied, he vowed never to give Dhartha the satisfaction of seeing him return. Ebrahim had betrayed his friendship, and the corrupt Naib had falsely condemned him. His own people had exiled him, never expecting him to survive. Now that he had found a way to live by himself, why would Selim ever want to go back and surrender it all?

For two straight nights, the young man slept. At dawn on the second day he awoke and opened more of the sealed boxes and cabinets. He discovered tools, rope, durable fabric, construction material. The possibilities filled him with joy, and Selim found himself chuckling all alone inside the botanical testing station.

I’m alive!

The storm had rattled past as he slept, unsuccessfully scratching against the walls of the shelter like a monster trying to get in. Most of the sand had been deflected, so very little was piled around the enclosure. From the vantage of the station’s largest window, Selim gazed across the desert sea that he had crossed on the back of the sandworm. The dunes were fresh and spotless. All signs of the dead worm had been erased, scoured clean. Only this solitary young man remained.

He envisioned a long journey ahead of him, and thought he must have a particular calling. Why else would Buddallah have gone to so much trouble to allow poor Selim to live?

What do you want me to do?

Smiling, the outcast looked out upon the desert, wondering how he could possibly cross such an expanse again. The vista filled him with a sensation of supreme solitude. He made out a few rocks in the distance, etched by eternal winds. Here and there were a few hardy plants. Small animals scurried into burrows. Dune merged into dune, desert into desert.

Enthralled by his own memories and feeling recklessly invulnerable, Selim decided what he must do, sooner or later. The first time had been an incredible fluke, but he understood better how to do it now.

He must ride a sandworm again. And the next time it would not be an accident.