Sunspots on the Heart

Clone companions do everything to keep their masters sane as they travel through space. Even sex. Lesbian scientist Dr. Yaro Volkov is disgusted by companions and wants nothing to do with Darla. Yaro is in her forties and Darla has been designed to look like a teenage girl with pink hair; forever. She doesn't have time to manage a clone's feelings, her mission could decide the fate of humanity.

At the end of the twenty-fifth century a scouting ship to Tau Ceti sent out a message "Aliens: Hostile". The worst possible way to start first contact. Yaro is taken aboard a military ship captained by her brother, Nester. Her mission is to figure out who the aliens are, what they are capable of, and whether or not they can be reasoned with. Only she doesn't even know where they're from.

It's up to Yaro and a small team of scientists to determine the alien's capabilities using speculative science built on an unproved theoretical framework. Her new coworkers are weird. Few have skills directly related to their goal, leaving the bulk of the work in her hands. Most of them have companions, glorified sex slaves. Yaro hates the practice of companions but has to work with people who are willing to use a clone like property. The problem is that avoiding Darla is slowly driving Yaro mad.

Misty Darla Pierceson Clowell is more than a companion, she's an unproven scientist who followed Yaro's work for years. A 30 year old woman manufactured to look like she's fifteen, no one is willing to take her skills seriously, not even the scientist that inspired her to work in Exo-sociology. Crestfallen, Darla aspires to assist as nothing more than a companion, but Yaro resists her, pushing her further and further away. Only they're on a space ship headed towards first contact, she's not going anywhere.

Try as they might Yaro and Darla can't ignore each other. Beyond sexual attraction, beyond their need to work together, love might shine though Sunspots on the Heart.