Near the center of a great spiral galaxy, where stars are much closer together than Earth's sun and its neighbors, a Human race developed. They were not identical to the Humans of Earth, but they were not very different, either. When these Humans discovered that waves of sub-space pi-tachyon particles could cross interstellar space faster than light, they realized they had found a link to the stars. A radio message that would have taken years to travel between stars could be sent with subspace communicators in months or even weeks. The Humans started broadcasting news of themselves to the neighboring stars, and soon found they weren't alone.