Cordyceps Glow
15 Aug 2021Andadromous
-----GalNet Low-Bandwidth Interpersonal Protocol
Origin Oochost BH-J
Routing Endpoint: Alioth:AliothUniversity:Xenobiology:Student:Student:#900123405N_Rostami
FuzzyLogic Entangled Pair Public Key Encryption; 4096-bit; Obfuscated IPV6
**Warning Low Integrity Channel**
STATUS::Draft 10 September 3307
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Hi Kid.
I know it's been a while, I'm sorry about that. You know I hate talking to this thing. The sound of my own voice is not my greatest friend.
Anyway, I've been out here a while now. Thousands of light years, humping and hauling, finding metals and keeping my nose down. I've been missing you every day. One of these days I'll get that permit to Alioth, I promise. Promise...
<Untranscribed, pause duration 45 seconds>
OK, I'm back now.
So, I'm out here looking for metals. Wait, I'm digressing. Fuck it. Shit! Sorry! Delete that. Damn machine.
Let's try this again.
I found a lovely planet the other day, the codex tells me that only one other commander has come this way since records began. Some guy called Draco Mercator. Dragon Salesman in the original Latin... hah!
It was pretty cold. I was out in the Sanguineous Rim, on my way out to find some polonium. Normally I don't pay much attention to biological signals on the DSS, but there was one that was sitting right next to a geological, and I was running a bit low on selenium, so I decided to go down and check it out. And the place was just covered in bark fungus mounds.
The composition scanner was telling me that there was a lot of manganese, mercury and some antimony out there, and you never pass up antimony. It's incredible how much of that stuff they need to make prismatic shields.
I drove around for a bit, shooting crystals off rocks and some phloem off the bark fungus. Then I found this one mound, with a cordyceps. And the cordyceps was glowing. Here, I took a photo, I'll stick it on this file, be right back.
The codex tells me it is not really unusual, I've just never noticed it before, but I don't really do biologicals. Think I said that already yep there it is edit that later.
But it got me thinking, why does it glow? Why waste energy like that? Life is the flow of energy, right. Biochemistry is electrons bouncing along from protein to protein, using the energy of the electrons to change shapes, fold DNA into spirals around histones, split fats apart. Making light is losing energy to photons, which just crawl off into the cosmos.
Why does the bark fungus glow? Is it trying to attract something? I mean, other than me and my Asp there was basically nothing within a couple of hundred light years that can actually move of its own accord. What is there to attract? Is the cordyceps a heatsink? Did the thargoids make living lamps? No, that's just silly.
I really want to know an answer to this. I really want to know, why does the cordyceps glow?
I'm rambling now, sorry. Note to self edit this later.
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