Reap the Wild Wind by Julie E. Czerneda

Aryl Sarc is of the Yena clan of the Om'ray, a clan that lives in the swamp, on giant Rastis plants on the planet of Cersi. The plants provide the Yena with their food, and what Aryl wants more than anything is to be a harvester, to be allowed to climb the Rastis and harvest their pods when the M'hir blows.

This year, though, she was passed over as a harvester in place of her closest friend, Bern Teerac, and in her zeal to witness and prove her fitness for the harvest, she climbs the rasta on her own, with her brother Costa, one of the fortunate joined who have reached sexual maturity and mated. But when an alien craft appears in the middle of the Harvest, it is disaster for the Yena clan. All of the harvesters are killed, along with her brother, Costa. Aryl manages, through the psychic power that she has, to save Bern from death by shunting him through an otherspace and onto one of the bridges that crisscross the rasta. Of all the others, only she survives.

The death of the harvesters and the loss of the harvest is only the beginning of the Yena clan's troubles, however. The Yena have long had an agreement with the Tikitik, another race that inhabits the planet of Cersi on which they live. With most of their harvest gone, the Yena Om'ray cannot meet their obligation to the Tikitik, which leads to a disastrous confrontation in which they must trade much of their stored food to meet their obligation to the Tikatik. And the questions asked of Aryl by her mother and the other Yena about how she managed to survive the great disaster, and how she saved Bern reveal Aryl to have a mental talent that would cause her to be banished from the Yena tribe if anyone knew, for the Tikatik will not allow any beyond a small range of psychic powers to survive.

However, Aryl manages to retrieve part of the craft that caused the disaster in the first place, and the Tikitik are anxious to have it, allowing the tribe to get a slightly better deal on the food. But they will still slowly starve from a lack of food unless something is done.

The tribe decides to send ten of its young men out to be Chosen, carrying their genes out to the other tribes to interbreed, and the adults must survive on half-rations, while the children are given full rations to survive.

Meanwhile, in the distant Tuana Om'ray tribe, Enris Mendalor, a skilled metalworker, is given part of an alien machine by the third alien race to inhabit Cersi, the Oud. The Oud want Enris to tell him what the machine is, and Enris cautiously agrees. The Oud tend to live underground, but the Tuana also raise food for them as well as for themselves. But the food the Oud live on is useless to the Tuana, and so they also farm food for themselves. Since farming is more efficient than gathering, the Tuana also have time to pursue other skills, such as metalworking, and they trade the with Oud for their broken metal bits to make blades and other things that they need.

The Tuana clan is doing well and has increased in size, leading to some of their clan becoming Choosers and leaving in search of other clans to marry into. But Enris has problems with women. Or actually one woman in particular, Naryn, a young woman who thinks that her great mental power means she should be allowed anything she wants... including Enris. He manages to outwit her by avoiding her for the most part, and works on the strange thing the Oud gave him. But when Enris would be sent from the tribe as a Chooser, the Oud tell the tribe he is not to go. Enris, who didn't feel it necessary for him to leave, is a bit relieved, and with the addition of Yuhen, a former Yena clan member who became Chosen, to the shop as an extra worker, he is able to discover the device's function.

But a mental attack by Naryn in an effort to force Enris to bind with her leads to Enris leaving the tribe, where he is found by an Oud and forced to accompany them back to their home to explain what the devices do, or did.

Meanwhile, Aryl comes to the attention of the Tikitik, and she is told to go spy on the strangers whose machine made such a disaster of the Harvest. What she discovers opens her world up to destruction, for these strangers are from another world, and while one of them may look like an Om'ray, she cannot feel him as she would a true Om'ray, making him seem like a ghost or a monster to her. But when the expedition to ruins sought by the outworld seekers comes to ruin, Aryl has no choice but to lead this human to her village, which may lead to its destruction by the Tikitik. Can Aryl save her people, or even save herself from the enraged Tikitik? And if she is exiled from her tribe for doing so, where will they go?

Enris, too, has a choice to make. Delivered to the Yena tribe just after the attack by the Tikitik, he has no choice but to accompany Aryl on her travels. But can he survive the deadly swamp the Yena call home?

Wow. This book drops you into the story with a minimum of explanation, but even that minimum is enough to allow you to understand what is going on. Three races inhabit Cersi, the human-like Om'ray, the Tech-based Oud and the Biological-manipulating Tikitik. Each race has its place and isn't allowed to change or grow, especially the Om'ray, who are culled to keep their mental powers in safe and allowed channels by the two other races. But despite these cullings, their mental powers continue to grow and expand with every generation. Aryl can not only tell all the members of the tribe without having to see more than a glimpse of them, but she has a greater range of telepathy with her mother and can seemingly teleport others in extremity as well.

If the Tikitik, the aliens who the Yena live most closely with, knew of all her powers, they would not allow her to live, but Aryl and her mother keep the powers secret, knowing of the Tikitik response should the aliens discover her powers. She isn't the only one who has these powers, which seem to be increasing with each generation of the Om'ray. This isn't the only problem that the Om'ray have, of course, and the loss of their harvest nearly cripples them, and reveals how weak and easily broken the bonds between the three races are. But will the failure of the bonds between the Yena and the Tikitik and the Oud fracture the bonds planet-wide?

That is a question the book doesn't completely answer, but we can begin to see it occuring in the later pages. The races who have traveled to Cersi don't know the damage they have wrought with their machines, even though they meant no harm. But will their attempts to help only cause more fracturing? It seems likely.

The best thing about this book was the three societies it presents to us, each complete and strange. Not that the Om'ray have anything like the monolithic societies of the Oud and Tikitik, but it was interesting to read to see how all three intersected. And since this is the expansion of Julie E. Czerneda's Trade Pact universe, showing how the Om'ray of Cersi became the Clan of the Trade Pact Universe, I can only guess it won't end well for the Om'ray. This book was a fascinating look at cultures under stress, and I'm interested in seeing where this book series goes. But even more than the Om'ray, the struggles of Aryl and Enris are what kept me in this book. Their characters are tested by adversity, and as they seek to do what is best, the forces of Orthodoxy around both of them seek to smash them down into conformity. When that isn't possible, they both attain a sort of exile, becoming choosers. But will this save them or damn them? I'll certainly be there to find out.