The first section takes place when Dylan Hunt is nine years old, with some flashbacks to his parents meeting and his conception. The second section, told in flashbacks, is complicated because I have no idea how years and months were arranged in the commonwealth system. I find it extremely unlikely that the Earth's system of dates would have been adopted, but lacking an alternative, I have tried to make do with both relative and Terracentric dating.

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 on 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 when 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.

GREEN APPLES

And if that's not lovin' me
Then all I've got to say
God didn't make little green apples
Bobby Russell

CY 9766 -- High Guard Academy Dorm

"Boy that was a total waste of time." Dylan dropped on the bed, folded his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. "I don't know how they expect us to learn anything here. After two years serving as an enlisted soldier I was anxious to get back to the books. Now they keep interrupting us with special projects like this." Dylan Hunt was twenty and in his second year of his training at the High Guard Academy. He had just returned from an interview with a visiting professor that had gone badly and had been dismissed as a total waste of his time.

"What did he want?" His roommate and best friend, Gaharis Rhade, asked.

"I don't freaking know. The old goat just rambled on and on about life goals and my family. He was as bad as that lecturer we had back at the preparatory academy who talked about becoming a hero. It's not as if I have nothing to do?" He closed his eyes.

An urgent high-pitched beep broke the silence of the room. Dylan frowned and rolled toward the communications panel at the side of his bed.

"Your message unit has been going off all afternoon. I tried to get it for you, but it is marked high personal priority. Might be something about your mother. Better check."

"Probably my mother telling me she will be flying in for the weekend and wants to see how much I have learned."

"Tough to have a High Guard mother checking up on you, but you better read her message anyway."

Dylan rolled over and stared at the message that appeared on the screen. He scowled painfully. His large hand gathered the front of his straight brown hair, twisted it together and pulled on it anxiously.

"Careful there, big guy. You kluges don't have strong hair follicles in the front to begin with. Hate to see you contribute to your own pattern baldness." His best friend knew that Dylan was upset, sometimes levity helped, sometimes it didn't. "Bad news."

"Confusing news. She is resigning her High Guard commission, and she is. . . . . I can't believe it Rhade."

"Can't believe what, Dylan?"

"She's getting married. I can't believe she is getting married! This is the second time in my life that I have been blindsided by my mother's actions."

"You've never even mentioned your mother having a relationship with anyone."

"I know, she doesn't explain who this person is, or how she knows him, or for how long, she only says . . . .

"Can you ever finish a sentence, Hunt?"

"Honestly, Rhade, I'm not sure. She only says that he is a Nietzschean."

* * * *

CY 9759 -- some backwater drift.

On the eighteenth anniversary of his birth, a day traditionally spent in celebration of the rights of manhood for members of the Three Rivers pride, Jason Eisenhower reclined in a surgical chair and diverted his head from the process being performed. He did not have to see; he could hear and feel. Twice he had declined the suggested analgesics choosing to experience with all his senses what the supersonic grinding wheel was doing to his body.

"You are brave, my son." The ancient Perseid performing the operation commented. "I wish there were a way to make this less painful."

"I want to feel it. I want to realize the depth of the decision I am making."

"I still think you are too young to do this, someone your age should be with a woman, practicing for your genetic calling."

Jason beamed. "I am not a stranger to women. I have been with many women, and there is one woman I love, she just cannot ever be my wife. Unless I . . . ."

The Perseid smiled. "One of those. I imagine a young man of your position and good looks has a number of women of that kind. . . ."

The smile was erased from the young man face, not because of the effect of the grinding wheel, but because of what had been said. "The woman. . . the woman I love . . . is the reason I am doing this. Denying my genetic heritage. And she's not THAT KIND OF WOMAN."

The Perseid ignored his comment and continued grinding making the young man flinch. "It would have been easier to have them surgically removed. Under anesthesia. No one would ever have to know."

"I am convinced, my friend, that you do not understand at all. I am having the points of my bone blades ground off round so that I will always remember that I am a Nietzschean, I am just a Nietzschean who is choosing not to fight."

* * *

Six weeks later, Three River's Pride home planet.

Eugenia Longshanks, the matriarch of Three Rivers pride, looked down at the young man standing before her with disdain.

"I still cannot believe what I see with my own eyes. Reports of what you had done have been circulating through the star system. You have done a good job of avoiding letting me know."

Jason said nothing, he stood with his head bowed slightly. He had replayed the events now happening many, many times in his head. Every time they ended the same, but he knew he had to live with the results.

"Your father was an alpha. Everyone has always expected that you, too, would someday serve as the alpha member of our pride. Your family's genes are strong. And yet you voluntarily turn your back on our culture, our heritage. You have chosen to disgrace your family. It would have been better if you had committed suicide. I have a right as matriarch to ask why."

"And I have a right not to answer. It is my life, my body. But I will answer, not because of right but because of desire. What I did, Madam Longshanks, I did for love. My love has been captured by a woman that I, in my alpha role, would never have been allowed to have as my wife. At best she would be relegated to concubine status. The only way I could possibly have her as my first wife is to destroy all chance of my ever obtaining alpha status. I intend to ask her to marry as soon as we are together again."

"You gave it all up for love, how incredibly romantic. And how absurdly stupid. I reiterate my statement as to the suicide would have been preferred by your family grouping."

"I fear you do not understand. I have no desire to die. I have no desire to fight. I wish to love. I wish a life with the woman I love and with whom I cannot have children."

"Then for all practical purposes, you are already dead. Your genes will not continue -- you have denied yourself as a Nietzschean. I hope you will be happy, Jason Eisenhower, out of Hillary by Robert E. Lee, spending your years as a groundskeeper in the Imperial Gardens."

Jason tried hard to maintain the look of shock and respect on his face. He had to force a grimace to cover the satisfied smile that wanted to surface, reflecting joy from fact that his plan had turned out exactly as he had formulated it. He could now able to offer the women he loved the one thing that might convince her to marry him. He had never been to the Imperial Gardens, but from what he heard about it, Alcee Hunt and her son would think it was about as close as heaven as a place could get.

* * * * *

Beshana-Tarn, three days later

"There must be some mistake," Alcee stared at the tall uniformed human at her door. "This message is not for me. Are you sure you have the right person?"

"You are Alcmeme DeWitt of the heavy gravity world known as CU379442. I have been looking for you for some time."

"That is because I haven't been Alcmeme DeWitt for some time. I have been married to Darron Hunt, late of the High Guard, for over thirteen years. I am a mother and a botanist. I have contracts to provide seeds and do genetic research. I cannot be the person you wish to train as a starship pilot."

"There is no mistake. The High Guard doesn't make mistakes. It just sometimes doesn't act quickly. You are not yet thirty years old, correct?"

"At this time next month I will be."

"At this time next month you will be on your first training voyage. You have to serve a year as an enlisted person, before the formal pilot's training begins."

"People fight to enter pilot training, bribe officials. I never expressed an interest in learning to be a pilot, even as a teenager."

"You were not chosen because of your interest, you were chosen because of your skill. Your test scores were some of the highest ever recorded in the history of testing. The Commonwealth cannot allow someone with your aptitude to be wasted here on this remote farm."

"What about my son. There is no one to care for my son, Dylan."

"You have no worries there. Dylan will be enrolled in the High Guard preparatory academy on Tarn Vedra. Your son has followed in your footsteps academically as well as exhibiting great strength and agility. Your son will be a valuable addition to the High Guard, as will you."

"I do not want to be High Guard."

"You have no choice, Mrs. Hunt. Someone will pick both of you up tomorrow morning at 10 AM, pack light, you won't need a lot where you are going."

The man left leaving her a file containing the copy of her orders. She looked through the materials slowly amazed by what she saw in her records. In test after test the high school girl had scored in over the ninety-ninth percentile. Notes as to he future in the High Guard were scribbled in the margins. However, shortly after her departure from CU379442, her file had been stamped "Inactive." It was only recently that the file had again been activated with a signature of Captain Robert E. Lee Eisenhower, High Guard.

* * * * *

Hunt Household, Beshana-Tarn, two years earlier.

"Mom, look." Eleven-year old Dylan Hunt ran into the room holding something in front of him and slid across the floor.

"Careful, what's the hurry." Alcee glanced over and noticed Dylan was holding a green apple in his hand.

"This mom. Look!" He held it out, and she glanced over and continued her work.

"It's just one of those wild applies. You know what they do to your stomach when they are hard, and when they get ripe they turn to mush. I was going to use them for applesauce next week."

"Mom, this isn't from the wild apple orchard. It's from those trees you told me about. The ones you grew from seeds from old necklaces someone brought to you. The trees that bloom every year and never make fruit. This spring I wondered if the nanabots weren't doing the job and remembered grandfather's stories about using paint brushes for pollination. I tried on one branch and there are apples on it now."

"Let me see."

He tossed it over to her and she looked at it carefully. Bright, almost neon green skin with a rose flush on its cheeks. It reminded her of her son, a perfect physical specimen with an innocence blush. She knew it was still unripe and would be sour, but she bit in it anyway. Its crisp texture held a great deal of promise.

"Give it a couple of weeks, Dyl, maybe we will have a new apple species. I'll name it after you."

"No, mom, please, it would be embarrassing. By the way, I think I am going to stay up at grandfather's tonight, is that OK?"

"Sure, it is nice that you are finally spending some time with him. Can you understand him?"

"He's teaching me. Says all Vedrans knew that language once, and that if I have had to learn Greek, I might as well also know English, too."

"You can never know too much, go for it, big guy."

She kissed her son on the top of his head. He was growing fast, that act might be impossible to repeat in a few months.

* * * *

Later that evening

"In another five years it could be Dylan," was the first thought she had when she looked out her door and saw they young man in uniform standing there. Tall and muscular, not hair out of place, not a button undone, standing almost at attention while knocking on her door.

"Mrs. Hunt?"

"I am Jason Eisenhower, Special Forces, and I am very sorry that I have some bad news for you."

"Not my son. He's supposed to be with his grandfather."

"No, not your son, I have news about your husband, Darron Hunt. I am sorry . . . but he is dead."

She had never thought of Darron as anything but away. Dead wasn't that much different. She almost felt a small hint of a smile on the corners of her lips, and bit down to make it go away.

She stood there, with no idea of what to say next. She was tempted to go back to her seed sorting. The silence hung.

"Are you all right? Is there someone here to stay with you?"

"I am alone, but it doesn't matter. I am no more or less alone that if my husband were alive in some far galaxy."

"I can't have it. I will stay until your son returns. My pride's matriarch taught us that it was part of the duty and honor of a Nietzschean man."

It was only then that Alcee noticed the bone blades that extended from his arms. She was not used to dealing with Nietzscheans and found their natural survival instincts frightening at best.

"There is no need."

"I insist. I will go back to my vehicle and inform the central unit that I am staying here until tomorrow."

* * * * *

Even later that evening

She cut a slice of the log of meat and placed it on his plate. The broccoli next to it made it look a little more palatable. She dropped a small flower next to the green vegetable as garnish, and placed it in front of the young man at the table.

"What is this? I don't think it is something that Nietzschean's usually eat."

"It's protein. I get it for my son. He is a growing boy and needs more protein that he can get from the vegetables I grow. I think it is made of by-products from meat processing. Doesn't look or taste very good, but it does supply needed nutrients. It's all we can get out here."

He picked at the clear yellow layer of gelatin that surrounded the soft center. It didn't look like any of the meat that was served in his household. He was going to say something that would probably be impolite when he noticed that she had only broccoli on her plate. Obviously she was giving him something special. He poked his fork into it and it crumbled on his plate. It would be another test of him coming manhood, and desired alpha status, if he could eat it and make her think he liked it.

"I do have something for you." She poured some yellow liquid into a glass.

"What is this?"

"Dandelion wine. You are old enough to drink it?"

He grinned. "Nietzschean drinking laws are different for those of kl . . humans. I can drink it legally." He took a bite of the meat and washed it down with the wine. It took three glasses, enough to produce a pleasant high, before he finished what was on his plate. He wondered about this wine that captured the color of sunshine and tasted sweet on his lips. The women, a woman who should have been mournful because of the death of her husband, kept refilling his glass and teasing him about his age. He had never had wine affect him like this, but then he had never had a woman anything like this one show any interest in him.

A Nietzschean who grows up without a mother is pulled in a variety of ways. The pride matriarch, Eugenia, as part of his grooming to assume his father's role as Alpha of the pride, had taught him the respect for women, a concept called chivalry on ancient Earth. His father had sent him to military schools and had indicated that perhaps he would also attend the High Guard Academy when he turned eighteen. His Uncle Tito had allowed him at the first signs of puberty to experience females of all species, rationalizing it to prevent him from straying from his future wife because of curiosity. No one had ever told him about an older woman who smiles, talks softly, teases, and feeds you yellow wine. Nothing in his sixteen years had prepared him for what to do when he awoke naked in her bed the next morning, especially when the woman was almost old enough to be his mother.

* * * * *

CY 9763 - High Guard Intersystem Shuttle

Thirty-four-year-old Alcee Hunt was older than everyone on the crew except for the Captain. She was ten to twelve years older than her fellow trainees and even five years older the highest ranking female officer, a rising High Guard star named Constanza Stark. The other women trainees spent most of their time talking about the men on the ship; but Alcee had never been tempted. She was civil but not friendly. She knew that there had to be people who knew, as she could only speculate, exactly why she had been conscripted into the High Guard at her advanced aged, and that they were probably watching over her now. Those people never identified themselves but kept her on her best behavior.

"Is that handsome High Guard cadet, that I see by your bedside, your nephew?" The officer asked one evening. Constanza Stark, also kept her distance from the crewmembers, but seemed to make a slight exception for Alcee because of her age.

"No, he is my son, Dylan."

"I'm sorry, I just assumed since you were High Guard that you were single. I have a picture of my niece, Sara, near my bed, but I've never been married."

"Nor have I for all practical purposes. My husband and I were together a very short time. My son was conceived while he was away on a space flight -- he rarely returned."
 

"Ah, the High Guard's silver chalice, the source of some of its finest officers."

Alcee made a face. She was glad that Stark had decided to have this conversation over coffee. A similar talk over wine might have led to a discussion that she had never had with anyone, about a man, maybe only a boy, who had come to her in a time of loneliness. The story of a young man and an older woman thrown together in passion and despair was not itself unique. She was sure that flings like that occur regularly, but this one was different because Jason had continued to return. Over the next two years following her husband's death, he had found excuse after excuse to stop by the Hunt orchards. She suspected that her son, Dylan, might have even thought that Jason was becoming his friend. There was no way to tell your son that after he went to sleep, or sometimes while he worked in the garden or ran his daily kilometers, that his friend and his mother spent time in bed together. She was glad he never suspected, although once he had commented that Jason's visits wore her out because she tried so hard to please him. Fortunately he was talking about her excessive cooking and cleaning.

She wrapped her hands around her coffee cup and stared off into the distance, as if trying to read a message in the cosmos that would explain how the joys in her life had come in such disparate times.

* * * *

CY 9759 - Hunt family home

"Why would someone do something like that, Mom?" Dylan asked one afternoon while she was shelling peas.

"Do what? I can't answer unless you are more specific."

"Jason, told me that as soon as he is eighteen he is going to have his bone blades ground down."

"What!" Jason had never discussed that with her.

"He says, that by grinding down the bone blades he would be rejecting his claim to be alpha of his pride and show the world that . . . . I couldn't understand that part . . . has he ever said anything to you about it?"

"Nietzscheans have the bone blades so that they are never without weapons -- always maintaining an advantage even when disarmed. It is part of their genetic heritage, like the way some peas are smooth and some are wrinkled."

"That was part of it. So why would he grind them down?"

"You said he didn't want to be the alpha, but he seems like he would be a natural alpha. I know he has taught you a lot."

"I like him a lot. Mom, he's my best friend -- I was so lonely before I met him. You and gramps aren't much for boy talk, sorry."

"So you talk 'boy talk' with Jason, do you. What does he tell you?"

"Mom. . . it wouldn't be boy talk if I told you. He does have a girl friend though. I guess it's OK to tell you that."

"He what?"

"He told me he has a girlfriend and that as soon as he turns eighteen, which I think is in a couple of months, he is going to ask her to marry him. It had something to do with the bone blades, but I couldn't figure it out."

Alcee's mouth dropped in shock. It was too much to expect that her young lover would not also have girls on the side. She hadn't expected him to marry so quickly, but if he were to start an Alpha family, which had several wives and dozens of children, he might as well get started. She would miss him, but wanted what was best for him. It had been fun, but it would soon be over. Such was the lot of a human who loved a Nietzschean.

"You have to be confused, Dylan."

"About the wife or the bone blades, Mom?"

"Not sure, but definitely one of them."

* * * *

Hunt house, a few months later

There was no one in the house but an old man, packing up her personal items and those of her son. He spoke in a language that Jason did not understand and even then did not say much. After speaking to the matriarch, Jason realized that his marriage to Alcee would have to happen quickly. It had been a mistake not to have all the details worked out in advance, but he had placed too much value the cloak of secrecy he thought covered his actions. He had not been deft enough. Somewhere, someone had connected the dots one step ahead of him, and now she was gone.

He walked quietly through the garden and looked at the flowers she had loved so much. He often walked with her when she removed spent heads, some she planted, some she composted and some she carried back for further research. He smiled when he remembered her laughter when she showed him plots of weeds that had been grown from the stuffing of ancient children's toys. Once she had found some seeds in a tin marked tobacco that when planted produced an airy-leafed plant that she abandoned after learning its hallucinogenic nature. Another time she had planted a vine that grew so fast that it almost overtook the entire garden. It was one of the few plants that she had actually destroyed. He missed the talks and walks in the garden almost as he missed the time in bed. What he missed most would be what he would now never have, Alcee Hunt as his wife.

At the end of the garden was a row of young apple trees. He remembered her showing them when the first met and the one branch on one tree with a few large green apples. She told him how her son had pollinated them, and he had laughed about a boy so young "pollinating." Now the trees were laden with apples. He picked one and slipped it inside his jacket. He was fortunate that he was a wearing denim work clothes, more suited for the Imperial Gardens; it would have been difficult to conceal an apple in the jacket of a High Guard uniform.

* * * *

CY 9766, approximately three weeks prior to the first scene of this story

"Are you up for sightseeing today, Alcee?" Constanza Stark called down the hall. They had just landed in Tarn Vedra after six months of running shuttles.

Alcee shook her head and tried to avoid eye contact with her first officer.

"When was the last time you left the ship when we were in port? This is Tarn-Vedra. You should get out and see things"

"I lived here once, many years ago. My son was born here. Then the Vedrans needed our land and we were moved to Beshana-Tarn. Do you realize what it is like to move an orchard and a tiny baby with your only 'help' being an old man who refuses to speak your language? I don't have fond memories."

"Still, Alcee, it is a beautiful place. I was thinking about going to the Imperial Gardens. I don't remember the last time I was there, and I remember that you told me how much you loved flowers."

Flowers had seemed a safe enough subject for Alcee to discuss with the woman who was now the ship's First Officer. When Alcee had been re-assigned to a ship with Captain Stark, she had done her best to avoid her. Keeping the conversations short and on safe topics. Friendship was not something she was looking for in the High Guard.

"I don't know, Captain, it might just make me sad. I do miss my flowers. . . and my son. I wish I could go to visit him. It doesn't seem fair, I haven't seen him in so long, and we are right on the same planet. Maybe I can find a reason to drop by the Academy."

"Think again. If the training schedules are the same as they were when I was in school, the second year cadets are out on their flight training. They should be returning just about the time we pull out for the next shuttle run. So at least get off the ship and come with me."

"Darn," she muttered under her breath and wondered if that might be considered swearing in the presence of a senior officer and thus reportable. "I still don't know! If they knew what they were doing at the gardens, they wouldn't let me in. When I was younger I was known to pick and steal flowers for their seed." She smiled widely, so Constanza wouldn't know whether or not she was serious.

"Well better then that you go with me, I can keep you in line. Of if you find the old urges too strong to resist, what better diversion than a High Guard Captain." Sometimes it amazed Alcee that the always-resolute Stark would go along with her playful comments.

Thus it was, that almost six years after leaving her now dead father-in-law's second orchard, Lt. Alcee Hunt visited the Imperial Gardens and walked among the flowers on a bright autumnal afternoon. Most of the flowers were past their prime, but she watched as a hoard of workers picked the dried heads for next year's planting. Seed saving made a conversational topic to share with her friend and First Officer. She was sure Stark didn't really care that much about plants and flowers, but Alcee knew that her First Officer realized that it made her feel better to talk about them and listened intently.

At the far end of the garden, at the end of rows of fruit trees, she noticed a pair of trees, just approaching fruit bearing age, heavy with . . . . it couldn't be. She looked and saw the same neon green apples that her son, Dylan, had pollinated by hand in the Hunt orchard on Tarn Vedra. She fought back tears.

"Could I have a moment alone, I . . . need to be alone for . . . personal . . . . I'm sorry, I can't explain it to you."

"You don't have to, Alcee. Take your time. I'll meet you back at the main building. I'll visit the gift shop and then wait in the coffee room. When ever you are ready, I'll be there."

Alcee sat on a wooden bench and eyes glued to the apples. She wondered what they were called now? Certainly not Dylan apples. What was she waiting for? There was a small card at the base of one of the trees explaining its origin, but she needed to get closer to read it. She was afraid what would happen if she got closer, maybe she might pick one? Did she actually believe that one would drop and she could run, grab and eat it? She closed her eyes and thought of the smiling face of young Dylan, and another face she had not allowed herself to visualize for the past six years.

"They're delicious. Try one."

"They're not delicious. Delicious apples are red or yellow, have a totally different texture, and turn brown when exposed to the air for even short periods of time. I don't know the name of these apples, but they are certainly not Delicious." She had no idea where these words were coming from.

She opened her eyes and took the apple from the hand of the man offering it to her. She found herself staring at his forearms -- forearms graced with the rounded stubs of Nietzschean bone blades.

"I know that. The name of the apple is Alcmeme."

* * * *

The next three weeks flew by quickly filled primarily with the formulation, requisition and approval of a myriad of plans. Constanza Stark, despite her High Guard toughness, was touched by the romantic nature of the reunion of the separated lovers. She was vital in the convincing of the High Guard that they would extract a great deal more value from Alcee Hunt through her working as a botanist at the Imperial Gardens than as an aging pilot on shuttle flights. The Nietzscheans of the Three Rivers pride had lost all interest in former member, Jason Eisenhower, and were not even notified of the upcoming union. The only DNA that would be combined in this marriage was that of apples and flowers.

There remained, when all was said and done, only one person Alcee had to explain the wedding to, her son, Dylan. She decided to tell him slowly, informing him when he returned to the Academy through the High Guard communication system only that she was marrying a Nietzschean. She and Jason would travel to the Academy, as soon as possible, to tell him the rest in person. Dylan was known to be petulant. She still had no idea how he would be react to the fact idea that she was going to marry the man he considered his childhood best friend.

Perhaps he had learned something in his High Guard training which would help him understand.

McJude

September 2002

 
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