Chapter One

Krogan surveyed the city through the window. Men piloting aerocruisers zipped among the spired buildings. Down on the surface, he could spot pedestrians rushing along the street, entering and leaving buildings. The city appeared vibrant and teeming with life, but there were very few women to be seen, and the ones who were out were either very old or very young.

The mantle of responsibility as governor-general of Caradonia had never felt heavier. I'm responsible for all of this.

"We must do something different. It's not going well." Vorgol spoke from behind him.

Krogan turned to face his second-in-command. "The antiviral isn't working?" A sense of defeat threatened to overwhelm him, but he schooled his features not to show it. If he gave in to despair, so would his people. Now more than ever, they needed hope. He needed hope .

"No, sorry. Not that," Vorgol said. "It's too soon to know the results of the treatments. I was referring to the Cosmic Mates program. Men are reluctant to sign up. If we don't get the males, we won't draw the females, and then…" He spread his hands.

"What seems to be the problem?"

"Take your pick." His vice governor-general settled into a chair. "They're waiting to see if the antivirals work; they're leery of marrying aliens; they don't find any of the species attractive; they're afraid of diluting the gene pool. We've gotten very few sign-ups."

"That's not good." Krogan took his seat behind the desk. "How is Oliana doing?"

"No change. She's holding steady."

Vorgol's wife was one of the "lucky" ones. She'd survived the initial onset of the pandemic. Unconscious in a stasis pod, she had a fighting chance—if they could develop an effective antiviral fast enough.

A nano -virus, part biologic, part robotic, had been unleashed on Caradonia by Nebulon-4. Males had been unaffected. So were prepubescent females and elderly ones, but every female of childbearing age had been infected. Half of them had died. The rest had been rushed into stasis pods to slow the progression of the disease until a cure could be found.

But it still might be too late to save their civilization. So many women had been lost that, even if all the ailing ones survived, there might not be enough females left to perpetuate their species. Within a couple of generations, Caradonians might vanish from existence.

At best, most men would never find mates. Loneliness and depression would skyrocket.

Krogan felt fortunate he had no desire to pair up. The only person he'd ever loved had been his mother, but the feeling hadn't been reciprocated. She'd abandoned him. He'd never met his father. Love? He didn't miss what he'd never had.

But he was aware his feelings were outside the norm. Other men desired wives. Caradonia needed women. As governor-general, it was his job to provide for the needs of his people.

Nebulon-4 had claimed the release of the nano-virus had been an accident—the biological-robotic hybrid contagion had inadvertently been brought to the planet on a cargo ship, but he wasn't so sure. He couldn't prove it, but he believed the rival nation planet had targeted Caradonia. For one, he didn't trust the Nebulon-4 government, its premier having shown disturbing signs of megalomania. Two, the nano-virus affected only Caradonians; testing had proven other species were immune.

And, if they hadn't been the target, how had the nano-virus gotten on the ship? Why, where, and how had it been developed in the first place? He vowed to unearth the answers to those questions, but for now, they had to deal with the most pressing problem—getting more females.

"How do you propose to get men to sign up for Cosmic Mates?" he asked. One thing he appreciated about Vorgol was that when the VGG came to him with a problem, he brought a possible solution, too.

"I have two recommendations," he said. "First, we must expand the program to other species besides the five we've identified as being biologically and genetically compatible. I did some research and discovered a species that will serve our needs. They're called humans. Their closest planet is Terra Nova. I had tests run on tissue samples from the Interplanetary Genetic Database. They are very compatible with us—more so than any of the other aliens. They resemble us more than any of the others. They're bipedal; their facial features are similar. They don't have horns or tails or stingers. I think they would be more appealing to the men."

"That sounds promising. Do you have a hologram?"

"I knew you'd ask." Vorgol tapped his wrist and a holographic image of three female humans materialized next to Krogan's desk.

"Are they life-size?"

"Yes."

"They're smaller than us." He stood up and walked around the holographic forms. The females barely came up to his shoulder. But they had two arms, two legs. They looked Caradonianoid , except for their hair and skin. The humans' coloring was rather…blah. One had beige skin with yellowish straight hair, another had dark-brown skin and curly hair, and the third was kind of in between. "No gliteri ?"

"No," Vorgol said.

Caradonians were born with at least one silvery scale patch that reflected their emotional state. It kept people honest because they couldn't hide their true feelings. Facial expressions and tone of voice could be controlled. The gliteri, not so much. Usually . Some people had learned how to mask their emotions to prevent the sigils from reacting .

Krogan was one of those. Not showing fear was essential to survival when you grew up on the surface of the planet. The ability to control emotion had served him well after he'd entered politics and become governor-general.

"Okay. I trust your judgment. Include the humans in the program. Start advertising on…Terra Nova, is it?" He took his seat again.

"Yes." Vorgol tapped the chip in his wrist again, and the holograms disappeared. "Now, my second suggestion…" The gliteri on Vorgol's neck shimmered.

He's nervous. Krogan arched his eyebrows. "Yes?"

"My second recommendation is that…you sign up."

"With Cosmic Mates? No."

"Hear me out. Your participation would be the best testimonial we could get. You have tremendous influence. People respect you. If the governor-general is willing to do it, other men will do it, too. You must lead by example."

What the fizzak did he think he'd been doing? He gave 110 percent and then gave some more. Government service was his life. His people's problems weighed on his mind night and day. It was his last thought before he went to sleep—when he could sleep—and his first thought upon awakening. As soon as they'd become aware they had a deadly nano-virus on their hands, he'd scoured the galaxy for the best virologists and nanobot engineers to develop a cure. He'd secured every available stasis pod he could find to extend the life of the afflicted until the cure could be developed. And, when the situation continued to grow bleaker, he'd come up with the idea for Cosmic Mates and put Vorgol in charge of it.

"Our men desire to marry and have a family," Krogan said. "We're not demanding a huge sacrifice or saddling them with an unwanted burden. We're giving them what they want—a wife. We're not forcing anyone to marry who doesn't wish to."

"They are still reluctant to wed an alien they've never met. But, if you're willing to do it…"

"Marriage is not in my future." If human females were anything like Caradonian women, they would expect their husbands to love them—or at least grow to love them. But he wasn't capable of it. He knew that about himself. It wasn't pretty, but it was honest. In thirty-six years of life, he'd never been in love. Lust? Yes. Love, no .

He cared enough to not subject a woman to an emotionless, sterile union but would never care enough for her to fall in love.

"It's not like you'd be locked in forever," Vorgol said. "The marriage doesn't become binding until after the first year. Both parties must agree to continue the union for it to become permanent. We wrote in an escape clause to incentivize men and alien women to give it a try."

"But they enter the contract with expectations of permanence. It may not work out, but they go into it hoping it will. It would not be fair to deceive her."

"It's not a deception if you're honest. Let her know up front it will be temporary. Tell her Cosmic Mates will guarantee her another mate at the end of the provisional period."

Some people said he was honest to a fault. Too blunt. Another reason why it was a bad idea to inflict himself on a wife.

"Caradonia needs you . You founded the program. You know it's our only chance for recovery." Vorgol looked at him, letting the truth of his words hover.

Krogan sighed. "Sign me up." He scowled. "Make it clear to whoever I get matched with that the marriage will terminate at the end of the year. I can't imagine why a female seeking a husband would accept such an arrangement, but if you can find one who will, I'll go along."