 What is the Minnow?
It lit the snow slope to a frozen glare, penciled black shadow down the long furrow, and flashed at the furrow's end on a thing of metal and plastics, an artifact thrown down in the dead wilderness. Two months later your time, one second later by us. Walking, talking natives on a blue sky planet with 1.1 g gravity and a twenty per cent oxygen atmosphere at fifteen p.s.i. We were able to show them our sun, in their telescopes. "Two, they brew a near-beer that's a lot nearer than the canned stuff we had aboard the Whale . People who talk English, drink beer, like jokes and beat me at chess or table-tennis are people for my money, even if they look like tigers in trousers.
 The Minnow is a shuttlecraft.
 The Minnow is Charlie's spaceship.  The Minnow is the most powerful ship ever built.  The Minnow is a shuttlecraft.  The Minnow is an escape pod.