A Planet Called Treason Author:Orson Scott Card Book club edition — This book was also published under the title Treason. — Three thousand years after the crime their forefathers committed against the Republic, the Families are subservient to a race of prisonkeepers with which each barters. The commodity: iron, with which an escape craft may be built, for Treason is a planet without hard metal ... more »resources. The currency: a refinement of the skill each original ancestor possessed. The first Mueller had been a geneticist specializing in regenerative research, and Lanik Mueller's Family barters with surplus body parts.
Lanik's personal disaster sends him on a journey across Treason, and as he travels he assimilates some of the special gifts of each Family. And they are various indeed: the original Nkumai had been a physicist, the first Schwartz a geologist, Allison a theologian, Drew an interpreter of dreams, and others. And as he learns he conceives of a plan for unity among the Families, long separated into warring clans, and an end to their subservience.« less