The first thing she noticed was the nausea. The second thing she noticed was the ice pick that had been driven, metaphorically, into her brain. The third thing was that she was already vomiting, although after the first two this was not surprising. It felt like all of her organs were attempting to flee her body through her esophagus. Eventually it subsided and she was able to hear sounds of the others being sick as well over the roaring in her ears. The roaring was new, or perhaps not, it may have just not registered, she wasn’t sure. A quick glance around her revealed that the rest of the team had made it, not that she had doubts about an ancient device of alien origin that had been lying abandoned on Mars for who knew how long.

“Yep, that’s it folks, let it all out.” Came the unwelcome and entirely too loud voice of Major Sykes.

A more careful glance and therefore hopefully less prone to spikes of pain showed that Sykes, while looking green around the edges was more or less fine and the only team member, except Makari, who was not still bent over double.

“Why are you fine?” Dr. Zanna asked, trying to keep resentment out of her voice. She wiped her mouth out and sat down, panting.

“Ah they took us Majors and Lt. Colonels out the other day, to the first planet explored. We went back and forth five times so if you think this is bad think again.” He said, not unkindly.

“While there isn’t any noise in space we weren’t in space so that might not apply.” Brennan said, starting to regain her composure and now rinsing out her mouth.

Dr. Zanna looked over to Sykes and Johnston to see if the comment made any sense to them. They both looked perplexed and Johnston was still showing some adverse effects but was managing to stay upright.

“Ok, I’ll bite. What does noise have to do with anything here?” Sykes asked.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Well, sound waves can harm the human body. There are several ranges of frequencies that have adverse effects. For instance,” she said, standing, “vibrations between five and ten hertz cause resonance in the thoracic-abdominal system and vibrations between 60 and 90 hertz cause the same thing in the eyeball. And some particularly low frequencies vibrate the chest wall and change respiratory rhythms.” She paused to swish some water around, then continued, “Or, this might just be how it feels to be taken apart at the sub-atomic level and then put back together by a device that wasn’t designed for human anatomy. Everyone have all the correct fingers and toes?” She giggled.

“See? This is why we went through one at a time.” Sykes said knowingly.

Dr. Zanna tentatively looked over her hands and wiggled her toes. They seemed ok, but she would be doing a very thorough check later. Realizing she was the only one still sitting she leveraged herself to her feet and endured the wave of dizziness that came with the motion.

“Alright people, drink some water, take another couple minutes to get your footing and then it’s recon time.” Sykes ordered and Zanna was glad of every spare second.

Now that she could see clearly and the rest of the pain and discomfort were fading she took in her surroundings. The Corridor sat on a series of large stone plinths with steps built up to its base. The tops of the plinths were remarkably flat as though they’d been cut very precisely. By contrast the stone steps were uneven and either pulled from the ground or cut by primitive tools. If she had to guess she would say it was by gouging holes in the stone then hammering in wooden wedges and filling the remainder of the holes up with water. This would cause the stone to split and that process could be finished by the application of a chisel. She traced divots around the edges of the stones with her foot where the holes were likely cut into the rock.

Beyond the Corridor and it’s stone monument they were in a meadow or glade surrounded by trees that while they didn’t look exactly like trees she was familiar with they looked less different than say, the difference between New England trees and Florida trees. In a way it was disappointing how similar this planet was to Earth. It could have been Earth really. On the other hand it was both marvelous and fascinating how techniques used to cut granite in ancient Egypt were the same techniques used halfway across the galaxy.

“Dr. Zanna, penny for your thoughts?” Sykes asked.