Preview of The Voyage of the Space Beagle Summary:

As the novel begins, Coeurl is prowling his desolate planet looking for food. The arrival of beings in a spaceship, beings who can be his food, inspires ravenous hunger.

The beings are humans on a scientific expedition. They are curious about this vaguely cat-like alien and carefully bring the caged alien into their ship. On board, the alien proceeds to kill as many of the humans as it can, and to take over the engine room. The ship is saved only after one of the crew, the Nexial Science department head Grosvenor, devises a plan to trick Coeurl into stealing a lifeboat. The alien is fooled into following the ship instead of returning to his own planet, and commits suicide rather than be destroyed.

The Space Beagle is a ship staffed with nearly a thousand men, travelling from Earth on a deep exploration mission through our Milky Way...