Previously the people of the world thought that they had threats from the outside world. The invention of deadly weapons like the atom bomb and later its use changed the thoughts of mankind forever. The human race realized that the only threat which it faces is actually from its self.
Octavia E. Butler describes the destruction reaching the extreme limits in this new novel by her after Parable of the Sower and Kindred. After the explosion of the atomic bomb, the human race is dying at a rapid base and the earth is not a place to live anymore. Such a scene paints the end of the human race and then the aliens show up out of nowhere as saviors. The aliens save as many humans as possible and then try to rehabilitate them on the planet where the condition is favorable for their existence.
Among those who are rescued by the aliens, there is one girl named Lilith. Aliens who have saved her think that she has a better potential than the rest of the humans they have saved. So the aliens hire her for the revival of other humans. Instead of becoming thankful to the aliens and helping her fellow humans, Lilith starts to revolt against the aliens.
This attitude of hers looks odd to the other survivors who think that the girl has gone mad. Only Lilith knows that the aliens are not as friendly as they look. With the grave voice of Aldrich Barrett in narration, we observe how a young girl single-handedly reveals the conspiracy of a foreign race of aliens against the local humans.