Cordwainer Smith’s The Game of Rat and Dragon. No extract to this one but the full 10ish page story is here at Project Gutenberg (my paper edition is the SF Masterworks collection of Smith’s short fiction, The Rediscovery of Man). Summary: man and cat telepathically link to fight space demon.
My parents never let me read science fiction or fantasy so every few months now I indulge my denied child-self and try something in this, the sister Fantasy Masterworks collection or, more rarely, the top 100 list at the charmingly 90’s-designed GreatSFandF. Most are not what I’d hope but some – like Smith so far – are so odd as to be endearing.
Extracts 