The History Of Unan Besar

"The Plague of Masters."

People from Earth colonized New Djawa which later fought a "...disastrous war with Gorrazan..." (I, p. 6);

during the early Imperial period, some New Djawans colonized Unan Besar after their scientists had "'...developed an antitoxin...,'" (III, p. 22) necessary for survival on Unan Besar;

Biocontrol, the arm of the Unan Besaran government responsible for producing and distributing the antitoxin, was staffed by idealists who demanded reforms under threat of destroying the antitoxin vats;

thus, Biocontrol became "'...the whole government...'" (V, p. 39);

Biocontrol trained technicians and hired administrators;

however, when the administrators started to become the real decision-makers, one technician, Weda Tawar, again threatened to destroy the vats;

thus, the governing board remains a few elderly senior technicians;

every member of the population, fingerprinted at birth, must pay an exorbitant price for a single monthly antitoxin pill;

children work, education is poor and vast differences of wealth and poverty have become hereditary;

Biocontrol favors the rich and makes no attempt to suppress crime as long as the latter makes money to pay for the antitoxin;

modern laboratories on other planets "'...can now duplicate any organic molecule...'" (V, p. 42) and can thus make Biocontrol obsolete but first Flandry must escape from Unan Besar.