Mara played the log. Eleven voices said the same word: a wet, clicking sound her own throat tried to copy before she clamped her mouth shut. She slapped the speakers off, heart pounding. The word wanted to be repeated. That was how it spread. She had to know where it came from.
Mara ran the word through the lab analyzer. It matched a pattern buried in the ancient rock cores the miners had cracked open last week. The word was a key. Something down in that rock had been waiting for a mouth to say it out loud. She grabbed a suit and headed for the shaft.
Mara climbed down into the cracked shaft. At the bottom sat a smooth black structure, older than the moon itself. The carvings on it matched the shape of the word. She pressed her glove to them. Images flooded her mind: a dead species that learned to copy itself into sound, so any throat could carry it home.