Pan Spechi

"Pan Spechi" are a fictional species in Frank Herbert's science fiction novels, "The Dosadi Experiment" and "Whipping Star". They first appear in his 1964 short story "The Tactful Saboteur".

Pan Spechi are unique in that a single individual has five different bodies, each uniquely different from the others. The lifespan of a Pan Spechi individual involves transferring the ego serially and irreversibly through each body; while the ego possesses one body, the others remain safely hidden and mindless in the individual's "crèche". "Crèche matters" are extremely private Pan Spechi affairs which are wholly their existential prerogative, such that a mention in casual conversation which even touches on crèche matters can be a cause for extreme offense.

The highest crime of the Pan Spechi is 'fixing the ego', or surgically altering the ego's current body to prevent ego transfer to the next. This is a capital offense; any Pan Spechi caught in such a state is immediately killed, regardless of the circumstances.

The individual sentient body of any given Pan Spechi outside of the crechè resembles the form of one of the other species of the Consentiency with whom he has contact and works; examples of Pan Spechi with human-appearing and Gowachin-appearing bodies are frequent characters in Herbert's novels. Indeed, the novels indicate that the Pan Spechi are able to grow bodies to match any known intelligent race. The eyes of the Pan Spechi are distinct from the species they are modeled on, however, in that they exhibit gem-like facets.