Space Lords: Cordwainer Smith

This volume contains: Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons; A 21-faceted moon is home to Mother Hitton, weapons mistress in charge of the care and feeding of the Littul Kittons - mink that have been selectively bred for psychotic madness. They are only allowed to wake for mating or when needed for defence...Minks with deadly, defensive brains...The Dead Lady of Clown Town: On the planet Fomalhaut III, Ellen - a therapist - becomes involved with a group of fugitive underpeople who live in a maze of drab service corridors jokingly dubbed "Clown Town", who are helped by a personality recording of the late Lady Panc Ashash and a telepath - The Hunter. Elaine and the Hunter, with D'joan, the leader who has been foretold, lead the fugitives on a fatal march into a city. The underpeople go knowingly to die - but will a lasting change come from their martyrdom? Drunkboat: In a universe policed by the Instrumentality of Mankind, Lord Crudelta needs a human for an experiment in space ³ travel. The Ballad of Lost C'Mell; Jestocost, a Lord of the Instrumentality of Mankind and C'mell, a beautiful cat-derived underperson, join forces to try and gain rights for the underpeople without upsetting the social order; A Planet Named Shayol: Mercer, who lives within the Empire, has been convicted of "a crime that has no name". He is condemned by the Empire to the planet Shayol, in which he lives in a penal colony where the prisoners must undergo grotesque physical mutations and grow extra organs which are harvested by the Empire. But are the Lords of Instrumentality aware of the horrors taking place on Shayol? Cover art by Jack Gaughan.