"The Game of Rat and Dragon" is a short story by American author Cordwainer Smith, written in 1954[1] and published in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1955. It is set in the far future, though no date is given. It occurs in the same universe as other Cordwainer Smith novels, with a passing reference to the super-powerful regulatory 'Instrumentality'.

Future humanity has found the secret of faster-than-light travel, but it comes with great dangers. To minimize these dangers, man can pilot ships through the up-and-out with cats as their partners. Underhill shares his mind with his cat-partner, the Lady May, and must travel to the terrible open places between the stars. Only by working together can they defend themselves and the ship's passengers against the dragons in the emptiness of space...

"The Game of Rat and Dragon" was nominated for the 1956 Hugo Award for Best Short Story.

Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29614/29614-h/29614-h.htm

Cordwainer Smith was the pen-name used by American author Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger (July 11, 1913 – August 6, 1966) for his science fiction works.

Linebarger was a noted East Asia scholar and expert in psychological warfare. ("Cordwainer" is an archaic word for "a worker in cordwain or cordovan leather; a shoemaker", and a "smith" is "one who works in iron or other metals; esp. a blacksmith or farrier": two kinds of skilled workers with traditional materials.)

Linebarger also employed the literary pseudonyms "Carmichael Smith" (for his political thriller Atomsk), "Anthony Bearden" (for his poetry) and "Felix C. Forrest" (for the novels Ria and Carola). He died of a heart attack in 1966 at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland, at age 53.