My Library

Glory's People by Alfred Coppel is the third book in his Goldenwing Cycle. Glory and the other Goldenwings are huge starships that sail the tachyon winds from the galactic center on miles high «skylar» sails , tacking their way back and forth across the galaxy. (Zigzag fashion, as any sailor could tell you, since the tachyon winds only blow one way.) The ships reach substantial fractions of the speed of light, so the crews live thousands of years in downworld time, but since they are slower than light vessels the colonists they trade with may go decades or centuries between visits.

In Glory's People, Glory is being chased across the galaxy by an unknown force that the crew simply call «The Terror». The terror it seems can move faster than light, putting Glory and her crew at a disadvantage. In this installment of the Goldenwing Cycle, Glory is visiting Yamato. Yamato was settled centuries earlier by Japanese colonists intent on restoring the feudal system of emperors, samurai and shoguns. It's to the stoic Yamatans that Glory's crew must turn for help in defeating The Terror.

The crew are all fitted with implants which allow them to communicate with each other and with the ships computer. A family of cats makes Glory home and the ship's surgeon has implanted the queen of the brood as well. She has access to the ship's computer and by some sort of cat telepathy is able to pass along knowledge to her offspring. A substantial portion of the series is told from her perspective. The ship is the Queen Who Is Not Alive and the Commander is «the dominant tom». (I'm sure Ferdy and his human pet would love the concepts. )