This exciting collection presents two previously unpublished stories by SF legend Butler. ‘A Necessary Getting’ precedes the events of Survivor, Butler’s third (famously disowned) installment in her Patternist series, and contains characters from it, concentrating exclusively for the Kohn, aliens who build their public hierarchies for the blueness of their fur. In ‘Childfinder,’ a black woman using the gift of identifying children with latent psychic capability refuses to share her skill with a business of white telepaths.