It has been a century since a small group of humans was marooned on a distant planet. Now their descendants struggle with rising infertility, infant mortality, and mysterious birth defects for which no cause—or cure—can be found. Reproduction has become essential, and those who cannot produce children are scorned. Anais, a brilliant female doctor born with inexplicable physical abnormalities, falls victim to this severe treatment. But then comes a startling revelation during an examination of a remarkably preserved corpse, a member of the planet's long extinct native race. With horror, Anais discovers that the ancient creature has deformities nearly identical to her own. There must be some link between the planet's past and the plight of the present-day humans, and Anais must find it before she is exiled forever—thwarting her society's last chance for survival. It has been a century since a small group of humans was marooned on a distant planet. Now their descendants struggle with rising infertility, infant mortality, and mysterious birth defects for which no cause—or cure—can be found. Reproduction has become essential, and those who cannot produce children are scorned. Anais, a brilliant female doctor born with inexplicable physical abnormalities, falls victim to this severe treatment. But then comes a startling revelation during an examination of a remarkably preserved corpse, a member of the planets long extinct native race. With horror, Anais discovers that the ancient creature has deformities nearly identical to her own. There must be some link between the planets past and the plight of the present-day humans, and Anais must find it before she is exiled forever—thwarting her societys last chance for survival.

Returning to the enigmatic planet first introduced in his compelling Dark Water's Embrace, Stephen Leigh thoughtfully examines issues of prejudice and race relations among the descendants of the world's marooned human survivors and its native inhabitants. On the faraway planet Mictlan, a tiny human society has had to struggle with severe and often disturbing complications to adapt to their desolate surroundings. There were physical mutations and birth defects among them, then an uneasy coexistence with the Miccail, an indigenous tri-gendered intelligent species. Most startling of all was the evolution of a third human sex: the Sa, or midmale. Now the fragile peace that governs the humans and the Miccail is shattered after a young human Sa child is kidnapped, igniting all the half-buried animosities smoldering between the two groups, as savagery and violence break out across the planet. The answer may lie in an imposing carved monolith—the Speaking Stone that contains the secrets of the ancient Miccail religion. Facing annihilation at the hands of its warring civilizations, the planet's only chance for survival hinges on deciphering the stone's cryptic hieroglyphs.