Note: Or perhaps a prologue with THREE chapters.
NARRATOR: Even more prologue: The Oafan colony world Oa-Aeafa, twelve million years ago.
MNELALAE: They called themselves "Hrathi."
MNELALAE: Their xenoarcheologists uncovered remnants of a galactic civilization similar in breadth to our own.
MNELALAE: The Hrathi were themselves members of a galactic civilization which swelled to include fifty-three thousand star systems before it vanished forty-two million years ago.
MNELALAE: Their writings say nothing about what vanished them.
(unknown): Sea and sky...
(unknown): Mnelalae, what would you have us do?
MNELALAE: Hiding seems prudent.