The Founder's Seed

When humans attack Iridos, killing most of the unammi population, misfit cleric Alira discovers she is a Harvester, able to absorb the memories and personalities of those who die in her presence. She'll need that knowledge to help her people. The problem is, not all Harvesters survive with their minds intact.

Disguising herself as a human is easy for shapeshifter Alira. Living as one turns out to be harder than she’d expected. And imitating a human well-known to millions on all the colony worlds may have been a mistake. To make matters worse, the harvests of knowledge and memories she’s gathered from the dead aren’t adequate to fully understand her assumed role—unless she surrenders control to the one internal voice she thinks can make things right.

Alira’s back from the brink of madness, though the voices still threaten her control. Terrified she’ll lose it again, she tries to evade human conflicts. Yet after she witnesses Cartel slavers kidnapping humans from her friend’s village on Bejami, she leaves her sanctuary to stop the Cartel from abducting and enslaving others. On Danua, acting Clan Admiral Knøfa experiments on his unammi prisoner. Except the squib isn’t healing any longer, and the medics aren’t working fast enough to save her.