The idiomatic term for "prudence door" or prudence burner, a pentashiekl sttuat ed in a passageway or escapeway intended to halt or slow pursuers TTiese pemasmelds allowed passage only to people wearing a properly coded dissembler They were used during the late Imperial period in hidden escapeways and, as a safety feature, in gladiatorial arenas Their cost and difficulty of maintenance limited their use to the very wealthy The harsh realities of Imperial cul ture forced even the most powerful rulers to employ such sophisticated safety precautions Farther references HOLTZMAN EFFECT PENTASHIELD PSEUDO-SHIELD. A sabotage device designed for use only on Arrakis It produced an unusable field that emitted radiation like a true defensive shield driving sandworms berserk Nothing could stop a worm that had been aroused by this maddeningly painful device The huge creature would attack and destroy the pseudo shield and all nearby objects Further references HOLTZMAI PENTA5HIELD EFFECT SEMI SHIELD FUND! RICE A cereal indigenous to Caladan, the staple food of that planet, first brought to the planet Arrakis by House Atreides Rice is a variety of annual grass grown m areas where sufficient water is available to submerge the land Rice is thrown by hand onto the ground and after twenty five to thirty days, seedlings are transplanted to Fields which are then submerged The crop is harvested by hand Since nee requires so much water, its only availability on Arrakis was as an import It was subsequently genetically engineered to shorten the growing period and need less water After the ecological transformation of Arrakis by Leto II, a new breed of pundi nee became a staple food of that planet Over the course of the century during which this transformation took place pundi nee had taken on a significance beyond that of food As Muad Dib s memory became sacred, the Fremen sought a way to properly commemorate the Kwisatz Haderach Since nee was so scarce, it was chosen to symbolize the scarcity of the single most sought after possession on the planet water Pundi nee was chosen not only because it had arrived on Arrakis with Muad Dib s House Atreides, but also because ot its slightly teardrop shape The Fremen believed the teardrop to repre sent the giving of water to the dead a precious gift to those who cannot use it Pundi nee came to symbolize the giving of FUND! RICE 424 water to the living, to celebrate the "shortening of the way." The ceremony which evolved, in which "the shortening of the way" came to refer to the shorter time needed to make Airakis a temperate planet, was held annually because it took a year to collect enough rice to provide each sietch member with the ritual mouthful. The ceremony itself singled out four people, traditionally those who had distinguished themselves in some way during the year.