Mission Child — Maureen F. McHugh

Young Janna has lived her fourteen years on the icy northern plains of a world that has for-gotten its history. Now the arrival of alien offworlders--identical in appearance to her own kind but far different in thought and culture--has violently upset the fragile balance of a developing civilization. The Earthers' advanced technology and cruel indifference to local life have brought despair and destruction to Janna's home, robbing her of family, husband, child . . . self. But with the cataclysmic end of everything she has ever known comes the opportunity--unsought and unwanted--for rebirth.