The City Who Fought (Brainship)

SHELLPERSON WITH A MISSION Simeon was bored. Not with being a shellperson -- like Helva, The Ship Who Sang, and Tia, The Ship Who Searched, he rather pitied softshells their mayfly lives and absurdly limited senses -- but with running the mining and processing station that made up his body. So when the arrival of an out-of-control refugee ship interrupted his latest wargame (Simeon's hobby) the excitement was welcome. Then the refugees told their story: attack by space barbarians. Soon, long before any help could arrive from Fleet, Station SSS-900 would be in the Fist of High-Clan Kolnar, and nobody would be bored, least of all Simeon. If anyone was to survive, somehow he must transmute his hobby into the real thing, and become --