Call them the Medusans. A billion years ago they ruled the galaxy, end to end and completely. Many artifacts, such as planetary outposts and derelict spaceships, are still being discovered, but the Medusans themselves are gone. Nothing remains but ruins, and in very rare cases, barely functioning and enigmatic machinery.
Almost nothing is known about the Medusans themselves. Based on studies of their relics, it seems that they had a variable physical structure. Sometimes bipedal, other times quadrupedal, they may have been an amalgamation of many different races. Ruins have been found on more than a thousand worlds and full cities on hundreds. They seem to have been individually long-lived, but one day long ago they simply vanished.
There is no evidence of war, or mass extinction, or plague, or even a galaxy-wide catastrophe. It is simply as if one day the Medusans quietly ceased to be.
* * *
CGC 5314 IV is a galactic rim world. We are far out here, well off the archaeological beaten path. The stars are thin and dim and the Milky Way is but a path. The isolation can be hard but has its benefits; I welcome the lack of competition. And 5314 IV is rich in artifacts. One hundred years ago I staked my academic reputation on this world, and have been here since.
Shauna was the best of my graduate students, the very cleverest Iâve known. I miss them, all my lost and scattered protégés, but I miss her the very most.
Shauna was brilliant, a mathematical genius. She once confided that she hoped to one day decipher Linear A. I believe she might have.
