[Randallw]

That's what got me confused. She is an anthromorphic alien, yet the excerpt (available at Baen site) has the aliens with tentacles. On closer inspection her hands appear to have little tentacles in place of fingers. I can live with cat people, though it get old that every time they mention the Orions look like cats they throw in the obligatory elephants are closer to cats than Orions, but it gets even older when the aliens are humans with perhaps extra bits and different coloured skin. In Star Trek it's so they can keep the budget down, but I tend to think anthroporthising aliens makes us too prone to thinking, at a subconscious level, that they should be treated as funny looking humans rather than as aliens with nothing in common with us that should be a threat if only as competition.