Two hands plus two feet minus one mouth equals gold. Such is the arithmetic of slave labour.
It is 2106, seven decades after economic catastrophe brought down our affluent times of the Public Era. Nations, airliners, governments, traffic jams, bank notes, banks, bankers and tourists all vanished long ago. The world is idyllic for those privileged to savour its beauty.
But Cost-Centre Lieutenant Lawrence Aldingford is not one of them. He has been condemned for life to the Value System, a slave-labour camp of grotesque barbarity. He is of course innocent as charged. That does not make him innocent, for the Value System is a place where everyone has their secrets…
He dreams of escape from the very first day. But the Value System lies in a vast marsh and no escape has ever succeeded. If he is to be free again, he will have to achieve the impossible.