Falling Free — Lois McMaster Bujold

AND SUDDENLY HE WAS FALLING FREE...

Leo Graf was just your average highly efficient engineer: mind 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 1000 quaddies--now all he had to do was teach them to be free.