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

It numbed them after a while, so much dying, you can’t go through


something like that and come out unscarred. So they closed down


their emotions to block it out, block it all out, and they’ve gone


through their lives here with just one thought—survival. Their own.


For all the talk of the colony, it only boils down to one person in


Like children, it’s all me me me. But


maybe it’s easier that way. They don’t let the pain in, the loss.


It isn’t personal. It’s almost not even real. As long as it’s not


happening to them, they can pretend it doesn’t exist—lock it away


like they’ve done to us, keep it out like they’re doing to Shanley.


It’s their way of dealing with things they don’t understand, their


Staring at the ceiling of my cell, I hope I’m prepared for whatever


he has in mind. I wonder if he even knows what that is yet.


Chapter 86