Chanur

No one at Meetpoint Station had ever seen a creature like the Outsider. Naked-hided, blunt toothed and blunt-fingered, Tully was the sole surviving member of his company -- a communicative, spacefaring species hitherto unknown -- and he was a prisoner of his discoverer/captors the sadistic, treacherous kif, until his escape onto the hani ship The Pride of Chanur.

In the sequel to Pride of Chanur, Tully returns, and brings with him a priceless trade contract with human space - a contract that could mean vast power, riches, and a mess of trouble for Pyanfar Chanur.

When the kif seize Hilfy and Tully, Pyanfar and her shipmates enter into a simple rescue attempt. It soon becomes a deadly game of interstellar politics.

When those alien entities called "humans" sent their first exploration ship into Compact space, the traditional power alliances of the seven Compact races were catastrophically disrupted. And, giving shelter to Tully, the only surviving human, Pyanfar Chanur and her feline hani crew were pitched into the center of a galactic maelstrom, becoming key players in a power game which could cause an interstellar war, or bring the last hope for peace between eight barely compatible alien races.

Ten years after the presence of the human Tully disrupted the crew of The Pride of Chunur, Hilfy becomes the captain and is offered a million credits to transport a small religious object to Urtur Station.