The planet Arrakis is a great interstellar holiday spot. Gorgeous scenery. Vibrant culture. Unregulated space drugs. But it has some downsides. Many a holiday maker has fallen prey to the local wildlife, the gargantuan sandworms, usually while trying to grab some selfies with them for the ‘gram. Luckily the native Fremen, infuriated by these “water-fat metropolitan types,” have been lending their local knowledge to tourists, navigating them around the deadly pitfalls of the open desert.
“Unfortunately, the tourist trade is our only stable source of income,” one Fremen told us. “You have no idea how much people will pay you to tell them not to do stupid things.”
One of the many Fremen techniques to traversing the open desert is to “walk without rhythm,” as sandworms detect and follow the vibrations of rhythmic footsteps. But some tourists have found themselves able to wander worm territory freely, without a guide. We sat down with couple Tim and Nancy Lebowitz to find out how.
“Well, I have EDS and Tim here has a congenital birth defect in his leg, so neither of us are, like, graceful,” Nancy told us. “If we were, we’d have been gobbled up in a second, apparently. We just sort of wandered into the desert by mistake.”
“I still say they should put a sign up,” Tim chipped in. “It got really weird when the Fremen saw us milling about and not a worm in sight. They started to worship us as messiahs, which was a little awkward. They get it wrong a lot, apparently.”