In a dystopian future, Will Barrent awakens on Omega, a planet where criminals are exiled and the average life expectancy is three years. He is listed as a murderer and released into the illicit society as a "peon," the lowest class imaginable. A mysterious girl gives him a weapon that starts him on his path to status, a path that requires constant brutality. But it must be borne if our hero is to discover the reason for his imprisonment; A reason that pits him against himself, and involves the sardonically similar but devoutly different creeds of Omega and Earth.