- Published: 1988
- Hugo Award for Best Novel, 1989 —
- Nebula Award for Best Novel, 1989 —
- Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, 1989 —
Leo Graf was just your average highly efficient engineer: min your own business, fix what's wrong and move on to the next job. Everything neat and according to spec, just the way he liked it. But all that changed on his assignment to the Cay Habitat. Could you just stand there and allow the exploitation of hundreds of helpless children merely to enhance the bottom line of a heartless mega-corporation? Leo Graf adopted a thousand quaddies -- now all he had to do was teach them to be free.