Those lovely blossoms known as dandelions to us. Whole thing is edible, though better when its young. There are a few other plants like that where the entire thing is edible. Well, she was a botanist, not that she let her family, or the deregger, government knew she'd become so well educated. A well-educated young woman there? They'd kill her for being too smart and her family followed the CEO's like they were gods.
Everyone thought her too simple to be of any use, and the bawdy houses were closed down because the current CEO, unlike his father and grandfather, thought them vile pits of sin that distracted the workers. So, since she was considered useless, and there were no bawdies to stick her in, her family let her sit for hours in the field all alone with the odd yellow weeds that the outworlder had given her to play with. People in their world were starving, at least the poorest ones were, but was it not odd, those yellow weeds... now seemed to be everywhere. -- Fighting Fit
Sometimes, the best way to be smart is to play stupid. Orchid learned this as part of the Free Alliance Schooling on Tradeside Station. Her parents sent her because it was free, and because all the best people got an education from Alliance schools. Those "best people" got an education from Deregger establishments that was more akin to deprogramming, but that point was lost on her parents. Thank whatever deities that had decided to interfere in her destiny.
The CEO if Tradeside Station also managed to miss the memo, and his heir had a dim view of the bawdies, and shut them down as mercifully as possible when he took the reins. Also thank those deities. Orchid had learned her lesson and pretended to be very dim in order to please the old guard. As long as she was silly and frivolous, and scrubbed up well, she was not a threat, and therefore not in danger.
Her parents never understood her fascination with botany. Specifically, old Terran plants that could grow anywhere and frequently did. Some had been gengineered for specific purposes, but had become weeds in the modern era. Sunflowers, Tukkatukka, Kudzu, and Dandelions.
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