Losing an eye and a leg in that action, and facing involuntary retirement, Baslim volunteers for the only unit that could still take him, the X corps, a covert intelligence group within the Guard. Having once reached flag rank and been assigned to a desk, Baslim voluntarily accepts a reduction to Colonel and leads an odds-against raid on a pirate stronghold to rescue a shipload of helpless victims being sold into slavery.

The beggar is really Colonel Richard Baslim, a legendary officer in the Terran Hegemonic Guard, an Earth-based interstellar police force attempting to keep the peace among an ever-expanding community of star travelers. But, even though “Baslim the Beggar” disappears early in the story, on another level, he is the major character of Citizen, and stands as one of the author’s most memorable.īaslim is special because Heinlein tells us so, demonstrating his ability to sketch his characters in a few bold strokes, and then convince us that these bare bones are worth caring about because he, the author, cares about them.īaslim, a one-eyed, one-legged old man, is a great deal more than he appears, the kind of man who does everything right, for the right reasons, and never counts the odds when he is up against them in a worthy cause – and wears scars to prove it. On its surface, Citizen of the Galaxy is about Thorby “Baslim,” orphaned as a small child, enslaved by space pirates, rescued by a mysterious crippled beggar who buys him at auction, adopts him as son, and educates him intellectually and in the ways of the world.

There he describes his offstage escape as involving a rise from Temple slave to high priest of a state religion, seemingly on a planet much like Citizen’s Sargon. Lazarus Long obliquely refers to an involuntary visit to a society much like Sargon’s at the beginning of Part VI, “The Tale of Twins Who Weren’t,” in Time Enough For Love. But, arguably, it may be an extension out from it, diverging from the paths taken by the Long family and their immigration to Secundus and Tertius. Heinlein’s outline of future history does not list Citizen of the Galaxy. The Scribner’s juvenile version is the basis of this precis. He also cut and slanted a serialized version intended for adults that appeared from September to December the same year in the magazine Astounding Science Fiction.

Originally entitled The Chain and the Stars, the author cut it heavily before submission to Scribner’s, intending it for a juvenile audience although it encompassed adult matter. Published by Charles Scribner’s Sons as a so-called juvenile novel, Citizen of the Galaxy appeared in 1957, at the height of the civil rights movement.

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