g at night while Chusuk's 109 three moons complete their circuit account for the gradual melding of die layers of stimic into an harmonious whole Each manufacturer has a master form on which the body ts made Before the tune of Ahdn-Hahd all balisets were made of elacca wood, but the proclivity of that substance to translate any atonal music into semuta music precluded its continued use The Butlenan Jihad and its scrutiny of all machines and instruments of any kind resulted in the prohibition of the use of elacca wood in the construction of balisets Not until generations later when Ahdn-Hahd began his work in stimic were balisets made in commercial quantities for sale Surviving elacca wood bahsets typically serve as forms, kept under tight security The making of a balisct involves strict discipline and nearly mindless obedience These attributes in the workers are crucial The consummate artistry of a luthier such as Varota coordinates the efforts of his apprentices and produces an instrument which is itself a work of art No matter how carefully the forming process has been earned out some qualitative differences of tonal substance will exist in new bahset bodies Through judicious buffing and planing, the still-incomplete bahset is given its own individual sound characteristics Beyond this the characteristic built into the body must be honored by the qualities of the nine strings A baliset of authoritative tone would reseat gentle strings, just as harsher strings on a more subdued instrument would be an indignity The strings themselves are produced by stretching long filaments of stravidium until the proper dimension is achieved The speed with which the filaments are stretched die tates the tone quality of the string Rapid stretching produces a narrower, more stndent tone Slow stretching results in a kinder sound Another consideration exists in the fact that the filaments cannot be cut to the required length it must be stretched to measure If a particular filament is stretched too far or not far enough, it must be discarded and the process begun again Each of the nine strings is capable of producing pitches between those of its neighbors, including the highest note of its lower neighbor and the lowest note of the next higher The stnngs are tuned in a seven tone scale with no half-tones Seven of the stnngs are pitched in quarter intervals beginning with C The pattern evolves as follows C-F B E A-D C These tones are equally tempered, ensuring fidelity of pitch and tone The absence of half tones makes equal temper mandatory since even well-temper would destroy the characteristic harmonic factor Stnngs 8 and 9 arc drones places at the side of the neck of the instrument They are essentially bass stnngs, and are set to the pitch appropriate tor the mode desired by adjusting the noter attached to the body of the instrument They are particularly responsive to the particular harmonics involved in the chord being played This characteristic makes the baliset, even the stimic baliset, so effective in evoking semuta music In effect the atonal combination of pitches in semuta is given both support and surrealistic intensity by the drones The lower pitched stnngs are wrapped in additional filaments with particular attention paid to the number of wraps per millimeter Each string is attached to the bahset at the foot by twisting it smartly around tiny hooks below the resonance aperture At the head each stnng is wrapped around its own tuning knob This accomplished, the fledgling bahset has only to be tine-tuned and inscribed with the birthname ot the mdi\idual who comniis stoned it This original tuning is of utmost importance because it informs the stnngs of their particular mission and ensures that only minor tuning adjustments will be needed in the future The l>re lute, and zythra were early an cestors of the bahset Larger instruments lost favor when space exploration was young and space vehicles very limited m areas for storage Perhaps the most successful space traveler among instruments was the crohm-vellar-a small, stnnged tambounne with the advan tage of clinging to space-suit matenal no matter what the effects of speed, or weightlessness From these small beginnings the fardahggen and vintule developed Both of these were really small versions of the baliset, but both were overwhelmed with sometimes BARADYE PISTOL 110 BCNE GESSERIT ARCHIVES three, or four drone strings, far too many for the comparative crudity of the instruments The baliset grew out of the colonization of space communities were established and planets settled A slightly larger instrument soon developed At the same time, this instrument needed to be compact enough for individuals to take along on any mtra- or inter-planetary voyages The baliset grew out of expedience The future of the instrument is difficult to predict Scientists like Ahdn-Hahd and artists like Varota are discouraged with the loss of apprentices applying to their studios Troubadors are met infrequently on the road and heard rarely in town squares The noble families seem not to encourage young people to learn the intricacies of playing the baltset and few common folk can afford one.