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

Go away,I think. I’m not getting up from my bunk until he


leaves. “Hey,” he says. Seeing the breakfast tray, untouched, he


asks, “Didn’t you like the pancakes?”


I’m not shooting the shit with this kid. As


he sets the tray he carries on the floor and removes the breakfast


tray from the slot in the door, I frown at him and ask, “Where’s


counters. He places the breakfast tray on the floor by his feet and


then lifts the one he carried in, eases it into the slot. “You


Oh God, just go away. He makes me sick.


But he doesn’t leave. Instead he curls his


hands around the bars and presses his face against them, leers in


at me. “Hey,” he says again, lowering his voice. I glance up—I hate


that grin of his, that unhealthy shine in his eyes. “Come


Tobin leans against the bars, rubs his groin


along the hard steel, and his eyes slip closed in pleasure.


Chapter 75