The Pride of Chanur

The first in a series of "lively tales of swashbuckling capitalism in space," featuring a fascinating alien culture based on the social structure of lion prides (Locus) Chaos breaks out when the captain of an all-female alien crew agrees to rescue a human male wanted by their enemy . . . No one at Meetpoint Station had ever seen a creature like the Outsider. Naked-hided, blunt toothed and blunt-fingered, Tully was the sole surviving member of his company of humans―a communicative, spacefaring species hitherto unknown―and he was a prisoner of his discoverers and captors―the sadistic, treacherous kif―until his escape onto the hani ship, The Pride of Chanur. Little did he know when he threw himself upon the mercy of The Pride and her crew that he put the entire hani species in jeopardy and imperiled the peace of the Compact itself . . . for the information this fugitive held could be the ruin or glory of any of the species at Meetpoint Station.