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

Ellington glares at Ramsey as he shrugs to


straighten his shirt. “Maybe they canhelp,” he says, with a


nod our way. Dylan’s hands are on my waist, Parker is behind us,


and when the colonists turn to stare at us, throughus, I


just want to melt into the floor. Just let me disappear, I


pray. “All I wanted was for things to go back to the way they


were,” Ellington tells us, “and we can’t do that, Ramsey. God, you


remember. You out of all these people, you remember what it was


like before the death, before the bleed.” Ramsey scowls at the


ground but I think he doesremember, I can see in his eyes a


wistfulness that makes my throat close up, it’s so poignant. “I


wanted us to get back to that, if we could. Hell, if we


couldn’t—I was willing to do anything at all to get that


“At the sake of the future?” Ramsey


asks, incredulous. His eyes flash with an angry light—the hope he


lost over the years, the hope Conlan gave back to him when he


Chapter 104