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

With each step we take, heads turn, people


stop, they stare, and I catch half-whispered words and quiet


phrases—They let them land… I’m not going… This was stupid, what


if they’re carrying? What then?“Carrying what?” Dylan


whispers, taking a step closer to me. His arm eases around my


waist, his hand fisting at my side, and behind us Maclin clears his


throat. I turn around to find him glaring at us but Dylan ignores


wasn’t a good idea at all, us coming here, what were we thinking?


Some of these people look at us like we have a plague, or we’re


here to… what did Ellington say? Tear down everything they’ve built


up, destroy their way of life, but we’re not, that’s not it at all.


What is it, then?a voice inside my mind


have to get that mapped so it doesn’t interfere later on down the


line, that’s it, that’s allI don’t like the way these faces


Chapter 44