Neal James is a space station navigator whose lover, Dylan Teague, left him for a starmapping mission. But when Dylan radios in a distant signal one night, Neal discovers that he hasn't managed to put the relationship behind him in the two months they've been apart. When he's one of the crew members sent to investigate the signal, he finds that his ex-lover feels the same.<br><br>The source of the signal is a lost colony ship. Only a handful of the original colonists remain, survivors of a deadly disease that killed most of their fellow shipmates twenty years ago. To keep the threat of disease to a minimum, the colony adheres to strict laws, including the prohibition of same-sex relationships.<br><br>When the same fatal virus seems to appear again, Neal and Dylan find themselves in the midst of an irrational panic and hate that threatens to destroy everything the colonists have worked so hard to attain.

Operation Starseed

But the next half hour I spend upright in


the HTS, feeling like an entombed mummy, protective gauze wrapped


around my eyes, my ears, my mouth. I wear a heavy lead drape over


my genitals—when Dylan first saw it, he laughed, called it a


chastity belt. “For all the good it’ll do you,” he joked


Dylan shook his head. “I’ll find a way in,”


he promised. At the time I was glad for the heavy drape, though,


because it pressed against the swell at my groin and deterred the


erection beginning to grow at the tease in his voice.


Inside the HTS it’s dark and even though my


eyes are closed, bandaged shut, I believe I can see red beams


dancing around me, lasers sterilizing my blood—it’s a queasy


feeling, almost like sinking very fast or maybe standing too


quickly, it’s sudden like that, makes me lightheaded and dizzy and


my stomach churns sickly. Shanley said it makes some people sick,


didn’t he? I remember him saying that.


Chapter 24