The Status Civilization

Barrent had been tried, convicted, and memory-washed on Earth-an Earth strangely altered and stratified by fear of the radical and the non-conformist. Now he was serving his sentence on Omega-a prison planet walled by a ring of hovering guard-ships from which there was no escape. Omega was a world of horror, a savage, ruthless way of life. But it was only a momentary ordeal, a prelude to a return to Earth and the subtle terrors of its own status civilization.