Chapter 3 - A Purple Cabbage
"Have you seen Lily-Lee?"
"I think she's in the botany department."
The captain found the hairy little creature sitting under a potted tree with a head of purple cabbage in her lap. She was tearing off pieces of the thick leaves with a ripping, crunching sound. Her fingertips were stained with purple and she was stuffing bits into her mouth.
"Where did you get that?"
"Chekov showed me how to use the food synthesizer. I missed eating whole plants and this was a new for me. These strong aromatic oils taste similar to those in the mustard they have in the cafeteria. Are the species related?"
"I guess they are. Plant systematics is not my field really, you'd better ask Sulu." She kept chewing leaf after leaf. Kirk sat down on the floor next to the large pot. Her small size allowed her to sit on the mossy dirt in the flowerpot and lean her back against the diminutive tree.
"If you keep eating that, you'll be peeing purple tomorrow. Just so you know."
Lily-Lee stopped chewing in mid-bite and looked lost in thought. She took in some whiffs of air and started chewing again. "Nooo, I don't think so. The colour compounds in the epidermis of these leaves are three-carbon-ring anthocyanidins with a sugar attachment. They seem very sensitive to a change in pH. I cannot see how they could pass intact through my digestive system, the middle carbon ring would break open. Maybe you are thinking about beets?"
Kirk laughed. "I guess I am. Do you know you sound just like Spock sometimes?"
"Really? Don't tell him that, I've got the feeling he wouldn't like it. Am I right to think that he isn't part of the human flock here? Here, do you want a leaf?"
"Well, thank you. More or less right. He is only half human, and he favours his vulcan half."
"Sounds uncomfortable to pick sides in an internal conflict."
"Well, he's not one for comfort anyway. Most vulcans aren't, they value logic."
"Logic got nothing on comfort in my opinion. Hey, speaking of comfort, mind if I nit-pick you? Nothing goes with shared food and conversation like a good lousing." She put the now smaller cabbage head down on the floor and brushed off her hands.
"Can't help you there. I don't have any lice."
"Let me do it anyway. It's relaxing for me and I miss it very much." She put Kirk's head in her lap with one bony knee at each ear and started going through his hair with her fingers, and he complied. He still nibbled at the purple and white leaf. It WAS relaxing, like a scalp massage or going to the hairdresser. There was nothing to clean from his hair, but she was pinching every strand from the follicle and up between her nails. Kirk had finished the cabbage and closed his eyes. "Deep down, we are all apes," he thought. "I wonder what face Spock would make if I told him she gives lousy head?"