Avon, 1998, $3.99, ISBN 0-380-79478-0, 329 pgs., paperback

The descendents of a group of explorers who crash-landed on the planet Mictlan suffer infertility, mutations, and infant mortality on an otherwise Earth-like planet. They can find no cause or cure as numbers dwindle despite their bets efforts at increased breeding. Then someone finds a preserved body of the planet's original race in a peat bog -- a body showing the same mutation. The doctor, Anais, attempt to find out the link between expired civilization and about-to-be-expired humans.

In between the societal give and take is a "1,000-years in the past" flashback about the original natives. This explains the demise of the inhabitants as well as the function of the "sa," a group of traveling hermaphrodites necessary for procreation in Mictlan's environment. I kid you not.

Leigh's prose is fine and the story moves along with shifting viewpoints. I'll give it lukewarm approval--not really my kind of novel, but interesting enough to keep reading.