It's a lovely story; it and Omelas bring a tear to my eye each time I read them. It would be best to read it after reading Dispossessed so you know just who Odo is and what a change she made in her world, but it's a treasure on its own.

Edit: I'm re-reading it now, and this jumped out at me as relevant to the theme of Omelas:

>There would not be slums like this, if the Revolution prevailed. But there would be misery. There would always be misery, waste, cruelty. She had never pretended to be changing the human condition, to be Mama taking tragedy away from the children so they won't hurt themselves. Anything but. So long as people were free to choose, if they chose to drink flybane and live in sewers, it was their business. Just so long as it wasn't the business of Business, the source of profit and the means of power for other people.