The actress Karene* Ambem describes a meeting with al Harba* ' immediately on his coming inside, I knew why Harq al-Harba had never attended a single performance, or allowed the public to contact him m any way It is still hard for me to accept that such a poetic mind could be trapped inside such a hideously deformed body I had never imagined that that kind of caricature of a human being could exist" (Pntpinail, p 41, from Champagne in My Slipper the Autobiography of Karene Ambern, as told to Ruuvarz Dillar, orig pub 10324, repr Zimaona Kinat) 3. Al-Harba was a secret computer enthusiast This strange charge develops thus if, as tradition has it, al-Harba was a filmbook salesman, then his living depended on what, for his time, was high technology Pntpinail asks if a "mechanotheist" (his term) could have written Machines hard and coM as Rossak, sterile as the second Of Salusa they have gmtntd us under wheels Of iron have frozen up oat blood They stop the building letters, still the voice Creative Death to King Machine! (Aw I, i, 35 39) 4. The final argument is that al Harba s fellow playwrights considered him a brainless clod The first evidence comes from a play, Arrakeen Corners (II m, 11 19), by Tonk Shaio Elder and Staple, two of the characters, are discussing newcomers to Arrakis ELD Now our chief has come the one who wants to be The button on our cap STA You mean the rube9 The boondock traveler turned to flogging plays7 ELD The same He started out with theft, By patching up the holes in worn out plays But now his needle work s improved he thinks That every writer s suit belongs to him And when he's told this to his face he laughs The second evidence comes again from Guaddaf s Judgment What justice is there in millions paid to witless actors and their hangers on when poor starve in their sietches1' What virtue in raising up to greatness those who live by telling empty lies? What profit in prattmg stones of a cursed shapeless past that never yet gave man woman or child anything but make believe to gawk at9 " 'Cursed shapeless past' is as clear a reference as we could wish to the play Lichna and its central character of Scytale, the Tleilaxu Face Dancer" (Putpmaii, p 49) These four claims have an air of retrospection about them having determined by act of faith that X X or Z wrote the Harban plays, one then searches about for scraps with which to discredit the recognized author To the first-the drunkenness story-we may note mat Guadddf compiled Judgment on Arrakeen in 10366 Granting that he composed the ser