Chapter Text
DANDELIONS
"god bless the rain, and the stormclouds that bring it.
god bless the music, and the voices that sing it.
god bless the ones who sing everything wrong.
god bless the creatures who do not belong." -- dav pilkey
"It's absolutely beautiful, Hannah." Alcee turned the clear ball in the light of her window and marveled at the plant matter embedded within it. "It must be very, very old. Are you sure you want me to destroy it to get to the what's inside."
"I've decided what's inside is what IS important. I've thought about it for some time, almost two years as a matter of fact. Someone had told me about your project to bring back the flowers, and I wanted to help. I always envied those who had preserved the things our ancestors had brought with them from Earth. I had nothing. Then I found this, and was afraid that it was might be something common -- far too insignificant. It was something that must have been passed along in my family, then I believe it was lost for a few centuries in the bottom of a trunk."
"I am envious of anyone who has ties with a family's past. My husband's family had some, back on Tarn Vedra. But I grew up on a mining planet, and we had very little as far as life's comforts. My family owned very little. No trunks for things to hide in for centuries, that's for certain."
"I cannot imagine what it was like, living on that hot world, working so hard, having to have genetic enhancements to develop the muscles just to be able to move."
"A child's first steps are a minor miracle. There are days when just getting out of bed in the morning is a victory. Heavy gravity is not for the weak of body or heart." She smiled at her friend. Even a small act, like smiling, was easier in the planet Beshana-Tarn than it had been on her home planet.
She glanced out at her son, now nine, as he ran through her garden. She wondered if he had any idea that all children did not get to play amid flowers.
* * * * *
It was a pleasure to introduce Hannah to her world of flowers. Alcee's latest work had been on a columbine -- a tall green stalk from which hung delicate, purple flowers. "I found one in an old wedding album someone brought me. It wasn't part of the bridal flowers, or at least I couldn't match it up with any of the flowers that I can see in the pictures. It must have meant something else to the bride, related to the wedding or an anniversary maybe? I think the flowers look like antique musical instruments, trumpets, but then others may think that I have an overactive imagination."
"I can't believe all the flowers they used for weddings on Earth. Now even one flower is treasured. Can you imagine celebrating with all those flowers?"
"Maybe one day our children will. My goal is to have white roses for Dylan's wife to carry when he gets married."
"Do you think the one I brought will be a white flower. It is hard to tell -- this is its seed stage, right."
"Right, I can't tell the color until I propagate it, but it's so beautiful as it is. Perfectly symmetrical, so delicate and airy. It looks as if one puff of air would seen the seeds flying everywhere."
"As if it would make a difference falling on the concrete and plastic world of Beshana-Tarn. I can't believe they won't let you grow your seeds in the hydroponics gardens, Alcee."
"Actually I am making inroads. It seems that my work with cross-matching DNA has attracted some attention. People are demanding more variety in their diets. They've asked me to work on extracting some of the base forms from the vegetable protein groups."
"I've read about that. How people used to have to mix grains and legumes to obtain a complete range of necessary amino acids."
"Now if I could just convince them that the same results could be obtained by using some of my flowers as food."
"This planet needs more people like you, Alcee. We should be eternally thankful that you fell in love with a High Guard Officer and he brought you here."
* * * *
Love wasn't exactly the word that described the relationship that had caused her to come to Beshana-Tarn. She had thought of a few terms that might be considered more fitting, words like curiosity, loneliness and possibly revenge, as well as the most unlikely of situations which to this day she could not explain. The path hadn't been easy, and it hadn't been direct.
Lt. Commander Darron Hunt was a man on his way up. As quartermaster of a troop transport ship, his job was to hunt down and bargain for everything needed on extended space journeys. Each planet was classified by its available products and the metals of the heavy gravity world known as CU379442 were of high priority. He had come to the planet to obtain Xenotime, what he got was completely another story.
Alcee DeWitt was only sixteen, just finishing the mandatory ten years of education and training that assured that everyone working in the mining operations could read, write, use computers and trouble shoot mechanical problems. She had hated school, but she knew she would hate the work in the mines even more. When one of her instructors suggested that she take a test for possible work in the distributive aspect of the mining operations, she jumped at the chance. The test was remarkably easy, the tests that followed became more difficult, but she enjoyed the break from the boring routine of her last year of classes and took each and every one of them. Her scores were not released to her, perhaps because the educational authorities had no idea what to do with someone that had scored at that level.
Her first job had been a simple one. She was assigned to meet with the crews of incoming starships, distribute and explain the use of the anti-gravity harnesses they would have to wear while visiting her planet. Even in the main offices, where the gravity was artificially decreased, visitors needed the apparatus not only to ease movement but also to prevent falls that could break bones. She liked it because she got to talk to visitors, some of whom would give her flexies to read during their visits.
Darron Hunt was not happy with the price that had been negotiated for the Xenotime ore. It was a trade off between a lower price he could get at another mining planet and the speed at which his order could be filled here. The High Guard had opted for speed, he still thought they should have made the company match the lower price for the ore. He did not like it hen things, especially trade deals, did not go his way.
He had little to say to the young woman distributing the AG harnesses. He had been wearing them for years. She was pretty in a Heavy Gravity world sort of way. He knew in a few years her work in the reduced gravity would cause her body to store excess fat. She would grow round and puffy, and stand out in sharp contrast to the females who worked the mines who were hard, stooped and wrinkled. Her softer look was not prized by heavy-gravity-world men; she would probably grow old alone.
"Are there many flowers on Tarn Vedra," she had asked casually as she adjusted the bands that held his harness in place. She did have a nice smile.
"Flowers are necessary for the production of fruit or vegetables, although there has been a lot of work with cloning. In that way I guess I am lucky, I grew-up on an orchard."
"An orchard. I've only dreamed of apple and peach trees in bloom. What is it like."
"Wonderful, but a lot of work. Now they have nanabots that do the pollination, but when I was growing up we had to do it by hand."
"You mean you didn't have bees?"
"Bees, girl, on Tarn Vedra! I think you have read too much Earth literature. Vedrans are extremely sensitive to bee venom. Bees were eliminated hundreds of years ago, which made the farmer's jobs extremely difficult."
"Then what did you do for honey, to make baklava?"
He shook his head. Reading had given this woman too many ideas. Life on Tarn Vedra wasn't like that. Even on the natural reserves there were not a lot of free insects. Now that he was forced to think about it, he wondered if anyone had even tested whether bees were actually sentient beings before they were destroyed. Maybe it had been genocide to eliminate them. But that something he would never know, another possible sin of his forefathers that had absolutely nothing to do with the price of Yttrium Phosphate on planet CU379442.
By his third day on the planet, Darron was convinced that he had made a big mistake by engaging the young woman even in casual conversation. She had changed her quest from reading all the flexies that she could possibly cajole out of visiting crews to pumping him for every memory he had regarding the growing of fruit and the nature of flowers. As soon as her shift was over, she would manage to find him and sit for hours with questions most of for which he had no interest or answers.
He looked at her as a little sister, or a pet, certainly not a woman he found physically attractive. He had always found women to be emotionally draining and not worth the effort it took to keep them happy. Between his obligations to his family, and the High Guard, he did not have time to worry about the tasks involved in the finding and cultivation of a wife. Despite the fact that they had spent a great deal of time together, he had never even asked Alcee's name, first or last.
He had already formulated arguments to convince the High Guard that despite the speed that the Yttrium Phosphate orders could be processed future dealings with this planet should not be considered. He doubted the quality of the ore. He doubted the accuracy of the measuring of the cargo being placed on his ship. Everything pointed to the fact that in addition to being overcharged, they were being defrauded. Leaving the young woman who had followed him like a puppy dog was only one of the things he had to look forward to with his scheduled afternoon departure.
"This cannot be right," he had screamed when presented with the invoice. "Your estimated loaded cargo exceeds by 10% the known capacity of my ship's holds."
"We've concentrated. The weight/volume ratio is different for that of Xenotime from other planets. Why would we want to overcharge you? It is an honor doing business the High Guard." The cargo supervisor glared at him with eyes that barely could be seen under his heavy eyelids and full cheeks.
"Do you take me for a fool? I've done concentration tests. The weight may be more, but the amount of Yttrium Phosphate is consistent with ores from throughout the universe. Perhaps it is because you add more lead to your mix."
"Lead is expensive. Not a naturally occurring metal on our planet." The man tried to smile, but that was difficult under the gravity of his planet.
"It is heavy though." Hunt was now reading through the other charges on the manifest. He had been charged for every item of food and lodging on his visit to the planet, including the sweet soft drinks the young woman had consumed while they were talking.
"It appears I have been charged for her, maybe I will take her then."
"What?" The corpulent man asked.
"Your whore. It seems that she has helped to pad the bill. Maybe I ought to take her with me."
"Alcee is far from a whore, she is one of the finest minds that our educational system has ever produced."
"And you use her to hand out AG harnesses, tell me another funny something."
"It is a temporary assignment, while we evaluate... "
"She is coming with me."
"What?"
"She is coming with me, to Tarn Vedra." The words came from a place Darron Hunt had never allowed his thoughts to go. "She is coming back to be my wife."
"I think Alcee will have to make that decision Lt. Commander Hunt."
Of course, as far as Alcee was concerned there was no choice to make. A world with flowers, even if only on fruit trees and vegetables, awaited her.
* * *
He had neglected, of course, to fill her in on the fact that the orchard was no longer in operation, or that the Vedrans had plans for the land and probably would be relocating the Hunt family within the next few years. For now Alcee would be relegated to living with his aging parents on a small corner what had been the family estate. His father refused to speak Vedran and insisted on using a language from Earth in which she could speak only a few phrases. His mother, while seeming to understand her, did not speak to her until she died three years later. It was enough to have a garden in which she could experiment and grow plants and hopefully flowers.
Darron was always gone. After all he was High Guard. She remembered the night, within weeks of their marriage that he left for the first of many journeys. He had handed her a small vacuumed sealed container, explaining that when and if she wanted his children, the genetic material necessary was contained within. That was about as close as they had ever gotten to intimacy. She had laughed to herself, a big full laugh now possible in the reduced gravity of Tarn Vedra. All the genetic material she was interested in was growing outside in the garden. The soil had welcomed her, even if the Hunt family hadn't.
Although she wasn't sure that it was not a dream, the memory remained fresh and did not evaporate with her waking. She had known immediately that the man who had come to her in the night was not her husband. The rules of the universe regarding time and space made Darron's presence in her bed impossible. Despite the physical duplicity, the man bore no emotional resemblance to Darron Hunt. He smiled and laughed. He touched her gently, in a way Darron, even after their wedding ceremony, had never touched her. She had read about love and sex in flexies given to her by leering members of starship crews, but when Darron Hunt had shown no interest, never dreamed she would experience it. He told her after that night that she would have a child, a special child; one for which she was chosen to care and nurture. She laughed thinking that she had read one too many novels, but was confused and delighted when she was in fact pregnant.
The old Mr. Hunt, who had slept through the noise in the next room, did not have to know that the vial of sperm his son had left had been discarded unopened. Nor did his son when he returned three years later, just after his mother's death, and told his wife, father and son that they were being relocated to the planet Beshana-Tarn.
The new world was dryer, less fertile and harsher climatically, yet Alcee continued her gardens. She had plenty of time. She even cared for the few apple trees her father-in-law had brought with him from Tarn Vedra, even though the only ones that survived the transit were the soft, yellow apples that lost all their texture when ripe enough to eat. She had other young apple trees, that she had grown from found and saved seed, growing on the edges of her garden which someday might bring orchards to Beshana-Tarn.
* * * * *
It had been nine months, Alcee laughed and compared the gestation period to that of a baby, since Hannah had brought her the plastic orb with the flower inside. She had been lucky, in that she did not have to reconstruct DNA but was actually able to grow some of the seed that clung to the ends of the filaments of white fluff. The seeds grew fast and produced leafy plants with long taproots and bright yellow flowers. Now she was on her third generation of the plants, producing enough to do some experimenting with them, beginning tonight with her son, Dylan.
Research in the All University Systems Library had identified the plant and provided much information about its uses. It was purported to have been one of the most nutritious plants on Earth, more nutritious than broccoli or spinach. It grew in a wider range of temperatures often being the first and last green available each year in the temperate climate of Earth. She had been amazed that all parts of the plant, from the root, the leaves, the buds and the flowers had been used as food by ancient humans.
Dylan ate the greens with relish. Her son was always hungry and it was a rare food that he did not try, but he seemed to genuinely enjoy the dish she had placed in front of him today.
"What is this, Mom?" he asked with his endearing smile.
"Its biological name was offininate. It was also called taraxacum by the Greeks."
He closed his eyes and appeared to be thinking deeply. "Disorder... remedy... am I sick?"
"No, big guy, and good job on the Greek." Her son had been as excited about learning this ancient language as he had been mathematics and science. "I think the ancients on Earth used it for medical purposes, but also for food."
"This is great, mom, which plant is it?"
"That one Hannah brought me the seeds for, the one with the golden-yellow crowns, hundreds of petals in on the top of a hollow stem."
"Oh, yea, I've picked a few of those. The sap makes a great stain for tattoos. Really faked my friends out with that, they though they were real."
"Dylan, did you know that on earth the legend had it that if a child picked one of the flowers they would wet the bed that night." She giggled.
"I haven't, mom, that I can assure you." His face was red. She liked the fact that she could still embarrass her son.
"There were lots of other children's legends about it too. They would hold it under each other's chins to see if they were going to be rich, or how sweet they were, or if they liked butter."
"I know I am sweet, I hope to be rich, and someday I am going to actually get to try butter."
"Maybe when you are rich. They also use the greens raw in salads, the flowers for garnish, you can cook the roots, or dry them and use them to make a beverage. "
"Wow, that is amazing."
"And you can soak the flowers in water and make a wine." Alcee laughed.
"Mom, you don't need any wine. Not until I'm old enough to drink it with you anyway. But if it was such a useful plant, why didn't they bring it from Earth to Tarn Vedra? Why did it become extinct?"
"It was a weed, Dylan. They also called it dandelion."
"Lion's tooth?"
"Look at the leaves next time you are in the garden."
* * * *
Alcee sat at the edge of the raised bed containing thousands of now white heads of the dandelions. She already had sent proposals offering to sell seed to a medical testing laboratory to do research on the many purported aspects of the plant's uses from acting as a diuretic to prevention of diabetes and cancer. A major distiller might also be persuaded to begin the production of dandelion wine. She pictured a world where Dylan's future, with or without faux tattoos, was assured to be prosperous, as indicated by the bright yellow reflection when she held the dandelion head under his chin.
She picked one of the white heads and blew gently upon it. All of the winged seeds took flight leaving her with an empty stem. She laughed to herself. Well, at least one of the legends was not correct. On ancient Earth it was said that if you blew all the seeds off in one breath, it meant your lover loved only you. Unless she considered Dylan as her lover, there wasn't a man who had loved this heavy-gravity-world space widow for years.
"I guess, even a dandelion can't be perfect," she muttered as she threw the stem onto her compost pile.