Query: H.L. Durkin/MORTAL SIN

(Adult Science Fiction – 93,634 words)

 Ferdinand Argeous had some serious angst about his new assignment, two years in Brazil buying up rare earth metals needed by his country’s military defense industry. There would be new languages to learn, a different culture to adapt to, and a tsunami of government regulations to navigate. Still if he was successful he would come home a hero for giving his people the gift of time in their long running war with the people from the planet Xanst. The construction of a ship large enough to bring his cargo back was already under way when he’d left his home planet of Rulinka. Two years later, his mission was accomplished, the ship from Rulinka was in Earth orbit and Argeous was waiting at the rendezvous coordinates. But where was the ship? In an act of desperation Argeous contacts the Institute for Alien Relocation with its offer to help extraterrestrials stuck on Earth get back home.

 The Institute was run by the U.S. spy agency, the Space Intelligence Network. Dr. Johnny Rizzo, the Director of SIN seized the opportunity to learn more about interstellar travel and sent agents to Brazil to collect Argeous and bring him back to the U.S. They found Argeous dead and followed a string of alien bodies to a crashed spaceship and a frightening conclusion: an intergalactic war had touched Earth and Argeous and the ship were victims of another alien species. Rizzo set a trap for the alien ship and captured the ship and crew. Was it a victory for the young spy agency or a first skirmish against a new enemy more powerful than Russia and China combined?