Citizen of the Galaxy

by Robert A. Heinlein

The novel is set in the future when the human race has developed interstellar spaceflight and is engaged in trade with a number of alien races. However human slavery has reappeared on some planets. The Hegemonic Guard, the space military force of the human government, enforces the law and fights the slave trade on frontier planets.

Thorby is a young, defiant boy who is purchased at a slave auction on the planet Jubbul by an old beggar, Baslim the Cripple, for a trivial sum and taken to the beggar's surprisingly well-furnished underground home. Thereafter, Baslim treats the boy as a son, teaching him not only the trade of begging, but also mathematics, history, and several languages, while sending Thorby on errands all over the city. Thorby slowly realizes that his foster father is not a simple beggar, but is gathering intelligence, particularly on the slave trade. In addition, Baslim has Thorby memorize a contingency plan and a message to deliver to one of five starship captains in the event of Baslim's arrest or death. When Baslim commits suicide to avoid being captured alive by the local authorities, Thorby delivers the message to Captain Krausa of the starship Sisu. Because the "Free Traders", to whom Krausa belongs, owe a debt to Baslim for the rescue of one of their crews from a slaver, the captain takes Thorby aboard at great risk to himself and his clan.

The Free Traders are an insular, clannish, matriarchal culture who live their lives in space, traveling from world to world trading. Thorby is adopted by the captain (thereby gaining considerable shipboard social status) and adjusts to the culture of the traders, learning their language and intricate social rules. The advanced education provided by Baslim and the fast reflexes of youth make him an ideal fire controlman; Thorby saves Sisu, destroying a pirate craft. His immediate superior, a young woman named Mata, begins to view him as husband material, tabu by Free Trader custom, so she is transferred to another ship.

The captain's wife, who is also the executive officer and the head of the clan, wants to use Thorby's connection to Baslim to enhance Sisu's prestige by marrying him off. Captain Krausa, however, obeys Baslim's last wish by delivering the boy to a military cruiser of the Hegemonic Guard of the Terran Hegemony, the dominant military power in the galaxy. The captain, who was one of Baslim's couriers, passes along Baslim's request that the Guard help reunite Thorby with his family, if possible. Thorby discovers that Baslim was actually a colonel in the Hegemonic Guard who volunteered to spy on Jubbul to fight slavery. In order to avoid paying for a costly background search, Thorby agrees to enlist in the Hegemonic Guard. Thorby is ultimately identified as Thor Bradley Rudbek, the long-lost primary heir of a very powerful, extremely wealthy family, which controls Rudbek and Associates, a large, sprawling interstellar conglomerate. In his absence, the business has been run by a relative by marriage, "Uncle" John Weemsby, who encourages his stepdaughter Leda to help Thorby adjust to his new situation while secretly scheming to block Thorby's growing interest and interference in the company.

Thorby, investigating his parents' disappearance and his capture and sale by slavers, comes to suspect that his parents were eliminated to prevent the discovery that some subsidiaries of Rudbek and Associates were secretly supporting (and profiting from) the slave trade. When Weemsby quashes further investigation, Thorby seeks legal help and launches a proxy fight, which he unexpectedly wins when Leda votes her shares in his favor. He fires Weemsby and assumes full control of the firm. When Thorby realizes that extricating Rudbek and Associates from the slave trade is a monumental task, he reluctantly abandons his dream of following in Baslim's footsteps and joining the elite anti-slaver "X" Corps of the Hegemonic Guard. Knowing that "a person can't run out on his responsibilities", he resolves to fight the slave trade as the head of Rudbek and Associates.