The theory of the alien origin of the Crompton Ruins was totally demolished. The few specialists on the Ruins argued rightly that nothing had been solved: only the nature of the problem had been changed. Instead of questioning how and when the aliens reached Crompton and why they built the structure, the mystery was how and when did Leto send construction crews to Crompton and why did he build it. Although these are intriguing problems, they have attracted little attention, no doubt for two reasons. First, the magnitude of the Rafcis Hoard has drained the energy and time of scholars who might otherwise have explored the Crompton question; it is simply so much easier to reap bountiful harvests from the Rakis materials that none has wanted to work die sterile soil of Crompton. Second, the psychologically more important, the exploding of the * 'aliens'' of Crompton was met with deep regret that the only evidence of intelligent non-human life yet to appear had been a mistake OF worse-perhaps a millennia-old hoax wrought by someone whose motives were often more mysterious man the structure itself. W.E.M. Further references: IXIAN NO-ROOMS; RAKIS FINDS EXPLORATION. CRYSKN1FE. A knife, whose blade consisted of a single tooth of a giant sandworm, considered most sacred by the Fremen. No off-worlder who saw one of the weapons, could be permitted, by ftemen law, to leave Arrakis without the Bremen's consent. (A number of never-explained deaths on that world may have resulted from the enforcement of that law.) Once the blade was drawn from its sheath, it could not be returned unblooded, even if the blood it drew had to be the user's own; to do otherwise was to insult Shai- Hulud and risk bringing his wrath on all Fremen. The object of this veneration was a milky-white blade, some twenty centimeters in length, which gave the impression of glowing in dim light-a sandworm's tooth. The teeth were brought into a sietch only infrequently; they were obtainable only when the Fremen found the remains of a dead sandworm. When such a find was made, as many teeth as could safely be carried were removed and taken back to the group's sietch for blessing and manufacture into knives. Crysknives of two varieties were produced in the sietch factories- fixed and unfixed. A fixed blade, which could be stored for an indefinite period of time, was treated by exposure to a series of electric currents, which "fixed" the blade's electric field and kept it static. An unfixed blade remained stable only so long as it remained in contact with a living human body; deprived of exposure to that body's electric field, it weakened and crumbled within a matter of hours. (This type of blade was most commonly used by Fremen, since it was not wished that anyone CRYSKNIFE 183 CRYSKNIFE should be able to obtain a cryskmfe by looting Fretnen bodies, Fremen w