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

Conlan studies his hands and doesn’t say


that there’s a lotto lose, for him at least. There’s Marie


and her second child, hischild, and that’s too much, no one


should have to give up that, no one should be forced to. “I’ll have


to talk to the committee,” he tells us. “We didn’t… none of us


thought you were staying for long but I guess we sort of thought


you’d stay together, you know? People might not understand if they


see only half of you leave. They’ll think you’re staying here for


good, maybe, to settle in here, and they—” He sighs. “We


don’t want that. We’re all a little worried about the bleed


resurfacing again, now that you’re here, or maybe something


different, something you’re carrying that we’ve never been exposed


to. You don’t know how hard I argued to get them to let you guys


I wonder again how they could’ve possibly


stopped us, unarmed as they are, but before I can ask, Shanley


says, “You have to understand how it is for us, too. This is the


Chapter 58