The boy was raised as one of the Chained, condemned to toil in the bowels of a mining ship out among the stars. His whole world changes--literally--when he is yanked "upstairs" and informed he has been given an opportunity to be educated at the ship's university alongside the elite. Overwhelmed and alone, the boy forms a bond with the woman he comes to know as "the professor," a weary idealist and descendent of the Chained who has spent her career...