Chapter 16

Chapter 16 is the sixteenth chapter of the Astra Lost in Space manga. It is the ninth chapter of the Shummoor arc and, in the compiled volumes, the ninth chapter of the second volume.

Synopsis
Kanata and Yun-Hua, still talking out on the plain, notice the wind has begun to pick up. A gloopie walking near Kanata suddenly collapses, and Kanata rushes to its side, shocked and confused. Yun-Hua offers it a doughnut-shaped flower she found on the ground; seconds after it does, the gloopie amazingly stands up again, nuzzling up to them happily. Kanata offers to take Yun-Hua back to the ship for lunch, only to be interrupted on his comm by a barely-conscious Charce. Struggling for breath, Charce sends them his coordinates, asks the two to come to get them, and orders them not to lower their helmets.

Luca and Ullgar stumble back to the ship under their own power a few moments before the rest of the crew return. After resting in the decontamination chamber for a few moments and entering the bridge, Charce shares his theory about the spores being poisonous with the rest of the crew. Kanata desperately asks Quitterie if she can help the others, and she agrees to try, deciding to leave everyone on the bridge and set up mats on which to lay the poisoned crew members. Quitterie enlists Yun-Hua's help with setting everything up.

As they rest on the bridge, Charce tries to explain in more detail the operations of the pole-trees and other fungi in relation to concepts they are familiar with; he explains that fungi poison is often hard to detect visually, and therefore serves very little purpose in protecting the host fungus. Having established that, he theorizes that the poison is meant to kill animals on the surface that can then be decomposed by the fungus and used as new bases for further propagating the species. The mossy covering on the ground also benefits from this function, using the carcasses as a place to propagate itself.

As time passes, the poison seems to become inert, but the symptoms the crew is exhibiting -- physical weakness, fever, coughing, and muscle pain -- persist. Kanata grills Charce for more information; he wonders if the fungi have a way of preventing all the animals on the planet from dying, which would be terribly easy, given the large spread the spores can achieve. Charce responds that the possibility of an antidote is possible, possibly existing in the form of a mushroom of some kind. Yun-Hua immediately thinks of the doughnut-shaped flower they fed to the gloopie, and Kanata excitedly agrees that it has to be the mushroom; however, while she remembers what it looked like, she cannot remember where exactly to find the flower-mushroom.

Zack tells him to look at the base of the pole-tree, where the mountain of carcasses was; he has realized that the pole-tree uses the antidote mushrooms to lure animals close to it, resulting in any animals that fail to find the antidote dying right at its base, in a convenient place for them to become its food. This both benefits the ecosystem and the pole-tree as a whole, providing it with food while keeping a substantial portion of the animal life on the planet alive for future consumption.

Having taken in all this information, Kanata decides to go find the antidote. Yun-Hua offers to go with him, but he asks her to stay and help Quitterie tend to the others, where she is needed more urgently, and she agrees to do so. With Quitterie urging him to be quick, he leaves the ship behind, breaking into a run as he exits the airlock and emerges into the spore-filled air.