The Third Earth — The Beta-Earth Chronicles: Book Five

For twenty years, Dr. Malcolm Renbourn and Tribe Renbourn faced adventure
after adventure, struggle after struggle on Beta-Earth.

Now, Renbourn and five of his Betan wives are forced to cross the
multi-verse once again, this time to the strange world called Cerapin-Earth.
After startling and frightening physical transformations, the altered
Renbourns meet two new kinds of humanity. One is the dominant pairs who are
able to share thoughts and sensations at the same time. The other are the
nams, single-bodied people the pairs deem defective mono-minds. As a result,
nams are exiled from the overpopulated cities of pyramid hives.

Tribe Renbourn must join the outcasts and teach them they are as worthy of
love and acceptance as any unkind pair. But helping the nams learn how to
stand up for themselves ultimately leads to a catastrophic war. At the same
time, Cerapin scientists plan another multi-versal jump that must also end
in a costly catastrophe. Along the way, two sexy spies complicate
everything.

On a world where technology is worshiped like a religion, how can the nam
rebels overcome the superior armaments of the pairs using primitive
weaponry? While this conflict brews, Tribe Renbourn explores what it means
to be human in ways they never expected. Will their epic end like it began,
forced to sacrifice themselves to save a doomed city?