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

Now I lean across to him and place my lips


against his ear, and I whisper, “I know you did,” before I kiss him


lightly. As I sit back in my seat, he turns and smiles at me and


this is why I love him, this is what I live for, these small


moments where his smile lights up my entire world. “Just keep her


steady, hon,” I tell him, opening the channel Vallery’s switched


over. “Ellington?” I ask—didn’t she say Ben was the one who had us


in sight? Not Conlan, the other guy, the older one. “You with us


strikes me that these colonists are all very curt, very


professional—almost humorless. I wonder what we’re going to find


down there when we land… but look at what they’ve gone


through,I remind myself. More than half of their original


number gone, and we’re not sure why but something like that’s got


to take a toll on a person, no? Maybe what I’m mistaking for a lack


of humor is just a grim outlook. Maybe for them, there is


Chapter 38