 What is the Minnow?
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. "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. Of course it's a screwy situation, playing chess with something that grows its own fur coat, has yellow eyes an inch and a half long and long white whiskers. Same as a fifty thousand mile fall, I suppose; same as escape; twenty-four thousand miles an hour.
 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.