Xenogenesis, book 3: Imago
Octavia E. Butler1997

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 future of both humans and Oankali rests 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 which makes them human.

Titre original : Xenogenesis, book 3: Imago (1997)