Child of the Earth and stars, Jodahs can shapeshift, heal the maimed, cure cancer, create contagion with every breath, or mutate the ground with a touch. Jodahs is an ooloi, a being beyond gender, born with the alien Oankali power to mix pure DNA within its body. But the child is also the first ooloi born to a human mother, and its destiny is unknown. The futures of both humans and Oankali rest in one young being's successful metamorphosis into adulthood.

Jodahs can become a mad, living plague -- or a bridge of peace. Its challenge is to reconcile its galactic heritage of gene trading with the rage of a people facing a terrifying dilemma. For human children will inherit the universe only if they lose all that makes them human.