FOUND in the outer reaches was a strange device unlike any known human invention. Upon the application of any slight heat, such as the fingertips, it would flicker and fuster into life and project a scant few minutes of footage. The images showed what seemed to be an alien race with a strange crackly soundtrack of slurping noises.
Reminiscent of the Voyager spacecraft of the 20th century, this similarity of idea could suggest that the recording and accompanying device are merely elaborate fakes. This question of origin left it placed with the art pieces, since either way it is an artifact, whether alien or not.
There is a hypothetical window of opportunity for contacting an alien civilization*. In essence a very short window of mutual beneficence. At one point they may be too young, and a visitation from the stars could be confused and construed into a mythological event. On the other hand a civilization too far advanced may be beyond our comprehension and more than likely we would be reluctant to approach them as inferiors. Alas, perhaps we ourselves are beyond being interested in such things, as the source of the Madumbe recordings has never been investigated.
With the time pressures of space travel, the likelihood of reaching a suffi ciently advanced culture, after discovery of their existence, but before they develop beyond our understanding is slim. It could take 300 years to send the question and another 300 to receive an answer. What question of any value could you really ask?
* Since non-Terran lifeforms are only theoretical, any supposed science surrounding them must be super-theoretical.
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