This is the most 'Science Fiction' of these stories until 'Tangle in the Dark' which will probably not arrive until 2014. This story is full of aliens, galactic politics, and innocent species caught in the middle, one of which is humans.
This should be of interest to anyone who wants to take a step back from the way we see ourselves and look at the human race and the human condition as we might appear to a species a billion years more advanced than we are, and as we might appear to one a million years behind our own. This offers a view of what might happen if we really had contact with the remainder of the galaxy.
Also in here is a possible answer to the Fermi paradox, 'Where are they?' since any species that learns to cross space should settle the entire galaxy in the time it would take to rotate on it's axis. Maybe they already have, maybe in the ancient past.
Incidentally, if there is any interest in the Pronna, we are fortunate to have a brief reference to some of their secrets. Also, for a good non-fiction look at the universe as it was known in 2010, see The Atlas of the Universe. There you will find a much better representation of our galaxy, as well as the primary astronomical reference used in this and all our other stories where stellar facts and figures are important to the story line.