lanet conservatory as a haven for the home-sick wives of governors on a desert planet, as a supremely luxurious enclosed garden of delights, was less important to the Alreides family than its political significance On a planet where the natives resented date palms for the amount of water they consumed, the idea of d sealed room in which water that could support at least a thousand persons was wasted on exot ic plants was anathema The conservatory was known to the Fremen as the "weirding room''-fit only for witches-and it is recorded that the head housekeeper of the mansion, the Shadout Mapes regarded the room with loathing The conspicuous waste of water was a deliberate status symbol, a statement of the power and wealth of the Imperial government Duke Leto properly terminated the grossly humiliating custom of water slopping at government dinners, but when the water-shipper Lmgar Bewt challenged him to extend the principle to the conservatory, the Lady Jessica intervened with a response that made a significant impres sion on the planetologist, Liet-Kynes Bewt had said I m curious what you intend about the conservatory attached to this house Do you intend to continue flaunting it m the people s faces m'Lord1?" Jessica replied "Mv Lord, the Duke, and I have other plans for our conservatory We intend to keep it, certdinly, but only to hold it in trust for the people of Arrakis It is our dream that someday the climate of Arrakis may be changed sufficiently to grow such plants anywhere in the open This response chimed so well with the most precious dream of Liet-Kynes, the gradual transformation of the desert plan et to a paradise flowing with water, that he asked her directly whether she brought "the shortening of the way ' Jessica's response completely changed the attitude of this influ ential Fremen to the Atreides government In the message left for the Lady Jessica by Margot, Lady Fennng lay a deeper warning or lesson conveyed by the conservatory 'The proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulge On that path lies danger Liet- ARRAKEEN CONSERVATORY ARRAKEEN PALACE Kynes said something to Jessica of similar import 'Remember that growth itself can produce unfavorable conditions unless treated with extreme care " The Frcracn coveted water greedily to put it crudely, they were dupes for the ecological dreams of Liet-Kynes as fulfilled by Paul Muad'Dib and they did not understand the danger to diem in the dream's so-rapid fulfilment Conse quently, they were destroyed as a race Packed into Jessica's wet-planet conservatory was genocidal dynamite The Freraen awe at the idea of duplicating the conditions of the conservatory over a whole planet sprang forth after Paul and Jessica reoccupred the Airakeen house Jessica went to the "weirding room" and Paul explained to Stilgar mat she was ' sick with longing for a planet she may never see Where water falls from the sky and plants grow so thickly you cannot walk between them ' Stilgar's reverent response showed to Paul how much he had become a creature of the Lisan al-Gaib, the Giver of Water Stilgar was thereb} lessened It was also an omen of the jihad that would send the Fremen oaplanet to goggle at m eis, lakes oceans and jungles- and then to seek their reduplication on Dune After the jihad years, Paul was content plating a moonlit enclosed garden at Arrakeen, with its fish pond, its sentinel trees, their broad leaves and wet foliage, when he momentarily saw the garden through Fremen eyes alien, menacing, dangerous in its use of water It is recorded mat he thought men of the Water Sellers, their way destroyed by the lavish dispensing from his hands, who hated him because he had slain their past Others hated him for changing the old ways Muad'Dib's presumption in making over a whole planet had yet wider implications The universe beyond would hate the name of Aireules when Arrakis had become itself a larger wet-planet conservatory, although it would be bathed and coveted not for its water but for its desert-derived spice and the power it symbolized Further references ARRAKIS KYNES PARDOT Attteides Lady Jessica The Years on Arrakis tr Zhaiv Aullan (Caladan.