Zhang lives in paradise, thanks to a common household appliance: the fabricator. The fabricator prints whatever his flighty heart desires, from frankfurters to foie gras, rubbers to rubber ducks, cocaine to chemotherapy. Fueled by alien trees from the other side of the wormhole, the miraculous device has banished homelessness and poverty to the dark ages. Zhang, like the rest of humanity, doesn't care how his fabricator works so long as it does.
But when he's sent through the wormhole on a rote journalistic assignment, he accidentally uncovers a much bigger story. The fabricator is fueled by more than trees. His discovery sickens him; the cost of Earth's utopia is too high.
Atlas, the disfigured commandant of the other side, can't let Zhang go home to Earth. No one would use the fabricator if they knew its true nature. Billions of people, including his young daughter, depend on the fabricator for food, for shelter, for life-saving medicine. If Zhang dies, the secret is safe. If he escapes, he digs paradise's grave.