Sandworm (Dune) - Sandworms and The Spice

Sandworms and The Spice

In Dune, the desert of Arrakis is the only known source of the spice melange, the most essential and valuable commodity in the universe. Melange is a geriatric drug that gives the user a longer life span, greater vitality, and heightened awareness; it can also unlock prescience in some subjects, depending upon the dosage and the consumer's physiology. This prescience-enhancing property makes interstellar travel ("folding space") possible. Melange comes with a steep price however: it is highly addictive, and withdrawal is a fatal process.

A by-product of the sandworm life cycle, sandtrout excretions exposed to water become a pre-spice mass, which is then brought to the surface by a buildup of gases and develops into melange through exposure to sun and air. Liet-Kynes describes such a "spice blow" in Dune:

Then he heard the sand rumbling. Every Fremen knew the sound, could distinguish it immediately from the noises of worms or other desert life. Somewhere beneath him, the pre-spice mass had accumulated enough water and organic matter from the little makers, had reached the critical stage of wild growth. A gigantic bubble of carbon dioxide was forming deep in the sand, heaving upward in an enormous "blow" with a dust whirlpool at its center. It would exchange what had been formed deep in the sand for whatever lay on the surface.