Double Contact

Double Contact is a 1999 science fiction novel by James White and the twelfth and last book of the Sector General series.

Plot
The empathic Dr. Prilicla, a veteran of Sector Twelve General Hospital for years, is put in command of an expedition answering three distress beacons. What he finds are two hitherto-unknown intelligent species, one of which has nearly wiped out the other. And he also finds evidence of a botched first contact--along with a rare opportunity to set matters right.

Background
The book has an unusual feature in personal pronoun usage: in most Sector General stories, one human is "he" or "she" (or other grammatical case forms) and one alien is "it". But, in Double Contact, often in the text the character Prilicla is "he" and a human or a member of any other species is "it".

Receptions
Clinton Lawrence described Double Contact as "in a very positive way, a throwback to an earlier era in science fiction" since it is optimistic and depicts several advanced species working harmoniously. The struggle to build trust and produce a successful first contact is, he thought, as exciting and suspenseful as one could wish for. However Lawrence also noted that the level of characterization was the minimum required to support the plot.