“Vata brought herself,” Hali said. She put a hand in Panille’s. “Some things don’t need a midwife.”

“Or a Ceepee,” Legata said. She grinned. “But it’s a role we all know now.” She shook her head. “I have only one question—What will Ship do with those people up there?”

She pointed upward at the vanishing ship.

They all heard it then, Ship’s presence filling the people on the plain, then fading, but never to be forgotten.

Surprise Me, Holy Void!

Afterword

Afterword

Meeting Frank Herbert & Bill Ransom

Frank Herbert wrote for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer when I was finishing my undergraduate degree at University of Washington in 1967–70. Students at the university started an underground newspaper, Helix, that was an immediate hit nationwide. One afternoon I picked up the latest edition on my way to work and had a good laugh at lunch over an article that bemoaned the mine-shaft gap between the United States and the Soviet Union. During every budget cycle, our government would pump more money into nuclear weapons with the argument that we suffered from an untenable “missile gap” between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and that more warheads meant more deterrence. The author, H. Bert Frank, claimed that we didn’t have enough fallout shelters for everyone, which meant that in time of nuclear war, mine shafts would mean the difference between survival and annihilation. He maintained that the Soviet Union had more mine shafts, therefore a higher probability of surviving a nuclear holocaust.

In 1973 my family and I moved to Port Townsend, Washington, to start Centrum, a non-profit foundation for arts programming. The Port Townsend Leader ran a story that celebrated the fact that two authors moved to town, both of whom were nominated for the National Book Award: Frank for Soul Catcher and I for Finding True North & Critter. I loved the wry humor and political juxtapositions of Frank’s journalism, so I dropped a postcard to H. Bert Frank that said, “I write in the mornings and break for coffee at noon. Drop by for a cup anytime.” Two days later, at 12:01, he knocked at the door and presented his own cup. “I write in the mornings, too,” he said. “The next one’s on me.”

Brian Herbert included the circumstances that led Frank and I to experiment with co-authoring in his biography of Frank, Dreamer of Dune, so I refer you there for that story.