When their plane crashes over the Pacific Ocean, three science students are left stranded on a tropical island and then imprisoned by a doctor who is performing horrifying experiments on humans involving the transfer of animal genes.

Stygian Black's mission is to convince Liza Caine, daughter of a Navajo Nation council member, to help him find Honor Roberts, who was cured by a medical giant and now holds the key to survival, even if it threatens to destroy the passion that has developed between Stygian and Liza

Genetically engineered tapeworms that protect most of the human populace from illness, boost everyone's immune system, and even secrete designer drugs begin to change and want out of human bodies they occupy

"Humanity's off-world colonies, the Called, were dying. Planets and peoples had been ravaged by the Diversity Crisis of environmental collapses and mutating diseases. All except Pandora, a thousand-year-old biogenetics research outpost, where respect for the ecosystem had become a fanatic religion and a small, genetically controlled population lived in self-sufficient city-domes." -- Jacket