"A sandworm!" Josten said.
"Only a runt," Kiel scoffed.
"Newborn-do you think?" Garan asked.
The worm waved its eyeless head from side to side. Other slithering
creatures, a nest of them, squirmed about as if they'd been spawned in
the explosion.
"Where in the hells did they come from?" Kiel asked.
"Wasn't in my briefing," Garan said.
"Can we ... catch one?" Josten asked.
Kiel stopped himself from making a rude rejoinder, realizing that the
young recruit did have a good idea. "Come on!" He charged forward
into the churned sand.
The worm sensed the movement and reared back, uncertain whether to
attack or flee. Then it arced like a sea serpent and plunged into the
sand, wriggling and burrowing.
Josten sprinted ahead and dove face-first to grasp the segmented body
three quarters of the way to its end. "It's so strong!" Following him, the
sidegunner jumped down and grabbed the thrashing tail.
The worm tried to tug away, but Garan reached the front, where he dug
into the sand and grabbed behind its head with a stranglehold. All three
troopers wrestled and pulled. "Get it!" The small worm thrashed like an
eel on an electric plate.
Other sandworms on the far side of the pit rose like a strange forest of
periscopes sprouting from the sea of dunes, round mouths like black os
turned toward the men. For an icy moment, Kiel feared they might
attack like a swarm of marrow leeches, but the immature worms darted
away and disappeared underground.
Garan and Kiel hauled their captive out of the sand and dragged it
toward the ornithopter. As a Harkonnen patrol, they had all the
equipment necessary to arrest criminals, including old-fashioned
devices for trussing a captive like a herd animal. "Josten, go get the
binding cords in our apprehension kit," the pilot said.
The new recruit came running back with the cords, fashioning a loop
which he slipped over the worm's head and cinched tight. Garan
released his hold on the rubbery skin and grabbed the rope, tugging
while Josten slipped a second cord lower on the body.
