Superluminal by Vonda N. McIntyre is $2.99 on
Amazon.com
This is an expansion of the novella
Aztecs
Quote:
In a future where space travel moves at faster-than-light speed, starship crews can only survive transit if drugged nearly to death. Then there are those like Laenea Trevelyan, who want to become pilots so badly they will go through years of training and major surgery to free themselves of biological rhythms. But though they become literally heartless, their emotions are just as human as before.
Laenea discovers this herself when she immediately falls for crewman Radu Dracul upon her early release—some might say escape—from the hospital after her procedure. She is not unknown to Radu; Laenea was the first offworlder he ever saw when she and her crew delivered a vaccine for the cryptovirus that decimated his family and his planet.
However, their intense attraction cannot last. Laenea’s modifications will not survive in close proximity to Radu’s biorhythms, which are too strong to allow him to become a pilot.
But even in the vastness of space, where ships and hearts can be lost, fate—and danger—can have a hand in bringing two people together again . . .
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