Xenophobia examines the impact of first contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence on the Third World. Dr Elizabeth Bower works at a field hospital in Malawi as a civil war smolders around her. With an alien spacecraft in orbit around Earth, the US withdraws its troops to deal with the growing unrest at home. Bower refuses to abandon her hospital. A troop of US Rangers accompanies Bower as she attempts to get her staff and patients to safety. Isolated and alone, cut off from contact with the West, they watch as the world descends into chaos with alien contact.