Pilingitam in Three Parts

Tam only saw the pilingitam trees once, when she was 7.

Pressed flush against the wall of a cargo truck, she’d glimpsed one of the plantations through the bars of a vent. Once, the trees had grown wild in forests across the planet’s surface, but industry demand had forced them into austere rows. They stood like soldiers, their thick, grey bark rising perfectly upright through the rocky soil. Above, a dense canopy of leaves blocked out the white sky like heavy clouds. It cast a twilight over their convoy and the concrete road as they marched towards the lumber mill.

The younger of the trees stood just barely taller than the truck itself. Their branches would occasionally tap and scrape against the metal roof. Tam leant into the unfamiliar sound. She believed that everything on Giedi Prime had a heartbeat. She could tell when machines were failing, or sick, or injured, from the irregular beating of their heart. The truck she was in had a dull hum. Sometimes, the engine would sputter in contentment, or rage. Just beneath the concrete road, there were pipes and wires. Tam once swore, if she focused very hard, that she could hear the crackle of the energy within them, although her bond-family had laughed at that impossibility. They were the veins of the planet, carrying life from distant, buzzing generators.

Somewhere under that cacophony, was the sound of the trees blowing in the wild and the sound of their leaves gently falling to the ground. She longed to touch the bark. She wondered if it would hum like the truck, or buzz like a generator.

In a moment of impulse, she squeezed her tiny hand through the sharp metal vent, and ripped a dangling leaf from a branch. The metal sliced at her fingers and the needle-like points of the leaf dug deep into her palms. But all of that pain paled in comparison to the guilt that she had felt. It burned through her to the bone. Still, she guarded her theft like a precious mineral. Out of the gaze of the black sun, Tam would admire the bright green glow of the leaf. She would hold it against the factory lights and trace her fingers along its veins. At night, she would clutch it against her chest, and feel her own heavy heartbeat rumble through it.

As all things do, the leaf eventually decayed and disintegrated and was left as dust on the factory floor.

–

There was a legend that Tam’s mother would tell her in hushed tones in the factory barracks. When humans arrived on Giedi Prime, they brought industry to the uninhabited planet. They stripped and mined and built. Forests were razed to the ground to make way for factories and cities. But, the older a pilingitam tree is let to grow, the harder its bark becomes. The oldest and tallest tree had bark stronger than steel, and roots that dug deep into the planet’s core. No matter the tools used or machinery waged against it, it would not budge or break. And so, the humans constructed a grand palace around the oldest tree, encasing it somewhere in the palace’s depths. It still stood, her mother would say, to this day. Even the Baron could not remove that tree if he wanted.

Even as she grew and her belief in the story wavered, Tam would think about that tree often. She’d think about the black stone of the palace rising around it like a tomb. She wondered if the Harkonnens thought about the tree at all. When they passed by it, would they give it any mind? Would their hands touch its bark and feel it hum?

As she carted crates of tools from the truck to the lumber mill, she watched the pilingitam bark be processed. The workers tore at the outer layers with claws. Saws buzzed and whirred, tearing through even the hardest wood with ease. There was no waste in Harkonnen factories. Wood was scarred and chopped in accordance to a perfectly efficient specification, drowned in dye vats, and then shipped to planets with names that Tam could barely pronounce.

She wondered, if she were a pilingitam tree, which fate she would prefer.

–

As was becoming usual on Arakkis, Tam dreamt of the palingitam tree.

She found herself sprawled beneath the canopy of an old tree, the harsh light of the black sun filtering through the leaves. The air around her was deathly still. The warmth of the black sun was so unlike the stifling heat of Arakkis, or the engulfing heat of factory furnaces. By comparison, it was cool and refreshing. Beneath her, the ground was hard and cold.

She was lying upon a vast salt flat. It glowed a blistering white in the monochrome light and stretched into infinity. Somewhere, far in the distance, it hit the horizon, but the sky above was the same endless white void. A beautiful cloudless day on Giedi Prime.

Somewhere in her heart, she longed to return home. But the embrace of the black sun was a kindness she had yet to earn back. So, she savoured these brief dreams as best as she could. She bathed her eyes in the blinding monochrome; a welcome respite from the garish oranges and browns of Arakkis.

Slowly, a dull hum began to arise around her. The salt began to vibrate and shake, only slightly. Wormsign? No… Not quite. The thumping was rhythmic, but frenzied. Somewhere deep below the surface, a sound echoed. It was the sound of chanting, of cheering, the sizzling of oil and whirring of machines. Had she so easily forgotten the sounds of home? The noise bore deep into her bones, echoed in her ribcage and palpitated her heart. She closed her eyes and embraced it, letting it wash it over her. 

But the moment was broken by a sharp pain forming in her left arm. It travelled up from pin pricks in her palm to blistering heat on her forearm. She felt it coil around her skin like a snake and burn deep through her muscle. Her eyes screwed further shut, and the pain began to congeal into the distinct form of fingers. They wrapped around her bones in a vice-like grip. Her body spasmed and writhed. The salt dug burrows into her skin.

Now, the sounds of Giedi Prime were deafening. She wasn’t able to differentiate the sounds of her people from her own cries and whimpers. But as much as the sounds overwhelmed and frightened her, she pushed herself further into them. She retreated into the warmth of the black sun, to the cold metal of factory floors, to the dull concrete of cities. Tears threatened at her eyelids, but they did not fall. They would not fall. And, as soon as the pain had arrived, it began to fade into the noise.

She dared to limply open her eyes, and found the black sun much lower in the sky now. She was no longer shielded by the leaves above her, and the light was cast fully on her weak body. The sky was a twilight grey. The black of night grew at the horizon. Carefully, she raised her tender arms, the pain still radiating through the left. She lay her hands heavy on her face and breathed as best as she could.

As she pulled her hands away, they were thick with blood.