The artifact in the chamber was making my thoughts compress, like a solar flare pushing on my mind, thrashing the rest of my consciousness out in an expanding wake of stretched-out thoughts. Mind-numbing rings of light flash on the walls, reflected off the floating cube, but somehow _wrong_. The other members of the expeditionary team were not faring much better. Andre was talking to things unseen and unheard and Melissa was reciting a litany of almost-prime numbers while slowly extending her hand toward the thing, fingers signing alien shapes. I ... can hear it now. I wish I couldn't.
