Though grand events could take place in the politics of the Imperium, this sea of sand never changed.

With the hoods of their jubba cloaks thrown back and stillsuit masks hanging loose, two rugged men stood on a rocky ledge, gazing across the moonlit dunes of Habbanya Erg. Sharp-eyed Fremen manned the desert-watch station on False Wall West, watching for spice blows.

Since early morning, Liet-Kynes and his companion spotters had smelled the aromatic gases of an enormous pre-spice mass carried on breezes across the erg. Down on the open sand, listeners had heard rumbling sounds from the belly of the desert, deep disturbances. Something was happening beneath the ocean of dunes… but a spice blow usually came swiftly, with little warning and much destruction. Even the trained Planetologist was curious.

The night was quiet, a bated breath. Overhead, an ominous new comet blazed across the skies, trailing a river of mist behind it. The spectacle was an important, but undeciphered, omen. Comets often signified the birth of a new king, or the death of an old one. Portents abounded, but not even the Naibs or the Sayyadinas could agree as to whether the omen was good or ill.

High on the cliffs, able men and boys watched for a signal from the spotters, prepared to rush across the sands with tools and sacks to harvest the fresh spice before a worm could come. The Fremen had gathered melange in this manner since the time of the Zensunni Wanderers, when refugees had first fled to this desert planet.

Gathering spice by cometlight… As the ivory blue Second Moon rose into the sky, Liet looked at the shadow on its bright face that resembled a desert mouse. “Muad’Dib comes to watch over us.”

Beside him, Stilgar watched with eyes as sharp as a bird of prey’s. Suddenly, even before the spice blow, he called out a wormsign. A mound of sand in rapid motion ran parallel with the rocks that sheltered Red Wall Sietch. Liet squinted, trying to discern details. Other spotters noticed the movement as well, and excited shouts rang out.

“Worms do not come this close to our sietch,” Liet muttered, “unless there is some reason.”

“Who are we to know Shai-Hulud’s reasons, Liet?”

With a slow-motion roar, the great beast heaved itself out of the sand below the high rock barrier. In the still of the night, Liet heard his Fremen companions draw quick gasps of breath. The enormous sandworm was so ancient that it seemed to be made from the creaking bones of the world.

Then, high on a cliff above, another spotter called out a second wormsign, then another and another— leviathans swimming beneath the dunes, converging here. The abrasive flow of sand made an undertone of whispering thunder.

One by one, more monsters emerged and formed a great circle with sparks of fire in their gullets. Except for the grating of sand, the worms were eerily quiet. Liet counted more than a dozen of them, stretching themselves as if to reach the comet in the sky.

But sandworms were violently territorial. Never were more than two seen together, and those two would be battling. But here they had… congregated.

Beneath his boots, Liet felt a vibration through the stone of the mountain. A sharp, flinty odor rose to mingle with the scent of melange leaking from the sand. “Summon everyone from the sietch. Bring my wife and children to me.”

Runners vanished into the tunnels.

The huge, sinuous worms moved in synchronization, rising around the first behemoth, as if worshipping it.

Watching the spectacle, the Fremen made signs to Shai-Hulud. Liet could only stare. This would be something to speak of for generations to come.

In concert, the worms turned their rounded, eyeless heads to the sky. At the center of the circle, the ancient colossus towered like a monolith over the others. Overhead, the shimmering comet cast as much illumination as the First Moon, spotlighting the desert monsters.

“Shai-Hulud!” the Fremen whispered from all around.

“We must get word to Sayyadina Ramallo,” Stilgar said to Liet. “We must tell her what we have seen. Only she can interpret this.”

With a rustle of her robe, Liet’s wife Faroula appeared at his side with their children. She handed their eighteen-month-old daughter Chani to him, and he held the child high so that she could see over the adults in front of her. His stepson Liet-chih stood in front of them to watch.

Out on the moonlit sand, the circle of worms writhed in an eerie dance, making a rushing friction noise. They moved counterclockwise, as if intending to create a whirlpool in the desert. At the center, the most ancient of all worms began to slump, its skin peeling, its rings sloughing off. Bit by bit, the old one dissolved into tiny living pieces— a silver river of embryonic sandtrout, like amoebas, that struck the sand and tunneled beneath the dunes.

The awestruck Fremen muttered. Several children hauled outside by parents and warders chattered with excitement and asked questions that no one could answer.

“Is it a dream, husband?” Faroula inquired. Chani stared wide-eyed, her irises and pupils not yet totally blue from exposure to the spice melange. She would remember this night.

“Not a dream… but I don’t know what it is.” Cradling their daughter in one arm, Liet took Faroula’s hand. Liet-chih’s eyes flickered, watching the moving worms.

The circling creatures churned about as the ancient one fissioned into thousands of embryos. The huge hulk broke apart, leaving only a cartilaginous husk of support ribs and rings. The shining downpour of sandtrout burrowed into the disturbed dunes and disappeared from view.

Moments later, the remaining worms dived beneath the sand, their mysterious ritual concluded. They surged away in many directions, as if knowing their brief truce would last no longer.

Shivering, Liet pulled Faroula close and felt her rapid heartbeat against his side. The little boy, waist-high to his mother, remained speechless.

Gradually the sands folded over in the wake of the immense creatures, leaving the stirred silica much as it had been at the beginning of the night, an endless sequence of dunes like the waves of an ocean.

“Bless the Maker and His water,” Stilgar murmured, his voice joined by his Fremen companions. “Bless the coming and going of Him. May His passage cleanse the world. May He keep the world for His people.”

A significant passing, Liet thought. Something tremendous has changed in the universe.

Shai-Hulud, king of the sandworms, had returned to the sand, opening the way for a new ruler. In the greater scheme of things, birth and death were intertwined with the remarkable processes of nature. As Pardot Kynes had taught the Fremen, “Life— all life— is in the service of Life. The entire landscape comes alive, filled with relationships and relationships within relationships.”

The Fremen had just witnessed a remarkable omen, that somewhere in the universe an important birth had occurred, one that would be hailed across millennia to come. In his daughter’s ear Planetologist Liet-Kynes began to whisper the thoughts that he could translate into words… and then fell silent as he sensed that she understood.