The Eternity Artifact

Five thousand years in the future, humanity has spread across thousands of worlds and has more than a dozen different governments existing in an uneasy truce. For all this expansion, though, human beings have found no signs of other life close to approaching that of human intelligence anywhere.
This changes when scientists discover Danann, a sunless planet traveling the void just beyond the edge of the galaxy at such a high speed that it cannot be natural. It is a world whose continents and oceans have been sculpted and shaped, with but a single megaplex upon it - close to perfectly preserved - with tens of thousands of near-identical metallic-silver-blue towers set along curved canals. Yet Danann has been abandoned for so long that even the atmosphere has frozen solid. The preservation alone hints at a miraculous level of technology. Within a few years, Danann will approach an area of singularities that will make exploration and investigation impossible.
Orbital shuttle pilot Jiendra Chang, artist Chendor Barna, and history professor Liam Fitzhugh are recruited by the Comity government and its Deep Space Service YD.S.S.", along with scores of other experts - predominantly specialists in aspects of hard physical sciences - as part of an unprecedented and unique archaeological expedition in an effort to unravel Danann's secrets. This is the story of their voyage beyond the galactic rim.