Imago — Octavia E. Butler

The long interbreeding between Earth and the Oankali aliens is nearly complete--and suddenly endangered--by a child.

But it's not a boy or a girl.

XENOGENESIS: The birth of something new--and foreign.

Jodahs is a human-ooloi, the Oankali third sex. Jodahs might be the link between all that is human and all that is not; able to shape-shift, heal the maimed, and change DNA by touch. But a single flawed ooloi can destroy a world, mutate the ground it walks on, and spread disease with every breath.

Now, in jungle exile, a child must master powers beyond comprehension or become a mad, living plague. And to survive, Jodahs must find the one thing the Oankali's amazing science can never provide.

A miracle ...