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"The Game of Rat and Dragon" is a short story by Cordwainer Smith, about problems posed by interstellar travel. The story was first published in the October 1955 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction.

Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.

Plot

Mankind has achieved the ability to travel to the stars, through interstellar space, but there are hazards, namely monsters that people call "dragons" who kill many of the passengers and crew on these ships, drive people insane. To battle these noncorporeal monsters, human psychics have proven very useful, but engineers have found that these human psychics work better against the monsters when they have partners—psychic cats. The cats are not sentient, of course, but their reflexes are very fast, allowing the human psychics to make instantaneous decisions to defeat the monsters. The cats see the other entities as rats.

Additional Notes

This story has been reprinted in, among other places, Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 17 (1955).

External Links

• The Game of Rat and Dragon at ISFDB.org

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