Firedrop Garnish

The crimson blossoms of the alien firedrop flower pull mankind into the stars. Though the firedrop offers no taste nor nutritional value, there is little humanity would not sacrifice to serve the firedrop upon a household's finest china. Space knows a thousand ways to kill those who dare float amid the stars, and yet the simple pulse and glow of an alien weed make all the dangers worthwhile.Catastrophe promotes Sal Maddox to the position of a harvester aboard the starship Klondike. But Sal is a green recruit, having served aboard the Klondike for only a few hops between the stars. Sal's education in harvesting the glowing firedrop, in collecting that treasure that swoons the hearts of women and men, must be a quick one. For he must face the dangers of descending to that small moon crowded by a giant and angry planet, where gravity and the void kill so easily those who dare journey to look upon the firedrop teeming in its strange soil. The harvest changes more than just Sal's bones, until that young spacer's heart calls a new landscape home.