This is the first chapter of Who Brought the Steak Tartare?, if you haven't read The Universal Good Deal you may want to start at the beginning.

Recalling his experiences aboard the Investigator, Franklin often said that the unfortunate death of his cousin, Matthew Flinders, was the only drawback he felt. All else was cordial unanimity, which prevailed in both the days of sunshine, as well as those of sickness and sorrow.¹ Obviously, the powerful interests involved in the matter compelled him to lie. Really, the expedition was a complete disaster; a nightmare resulting in the death of everyone except Franklin. But, in their way, the Martians called it a great success. Barrow even cited the high number of casualties as proof.

The stated goal was to find a way to the Aliens’ home by exploring their connection to the gas giant the Martians called Jupiter. The Martians hoped to gain passage to the rich markets for traffic of merchandise.² But it is absurd to think that Welles, Flinders, or even Barrow imagined that they were going to achieve any such thing with this journey to Jupiter. Every celestial mission the Martians undertook had a terrestrial purpose at heart. Barrow was mostly concerned with promoting the Association, and felt that a mission to space, whatever its purpose would be good for the Association’s reputation. Flinders, who was to lead the expedition, hoped to die. And Welles was looking for a distraction—to keep her people from panic during this tumultuous time, and to keep Barrow from poking his bureaucratic nose any further into her affairs. Everyone got what they wanted out of the venture, and there was a perfect scapegoat for the mess that remained.

Trim, the cat, was publicly blamed for the catastrophe from the moment the high-gain antenna stopped working, even though Barrow knew very well that he and Flinders were responsible for this particular mishap. And when Franklin returned, naked, bloody, foul—they said he was clutching Trim’s fangs in his grimy fist, and the cat was made into a monster. But, of course, Trim only started eating people because nobody bothered to feed him.

To be sure, Trim’s presence on the Investigator posed definite biological challenges. At the time, Martian spaceflight could only be described as barbaric, relying as it did on explosives, funnels, and velcro. Although the Martians had developed a remarkably advanced material they called kitty litter, it was clear that even this would be insufficient to manage the animal’s bodily functions in microgravity. Considering the excessive accommodations the cat required, I have to wonder why Flinders wanted him along at all. Flinders was not sentimental. It’s hard to believe he brought the cat out of love or a desire for companionship. It seems much more likely that he brought the cat out of superstition.

Whatever the case, Flinders had once assisted a descendant of the brilliant designer Schjeldahl, and owing him a favor, this descendant brought all her inherited genius to bear on the problem of a cat in space. The result was a marvelous robotic diaper which recycled the water from Trim’s urine and shrink-wrapped the cat’s solid waste for sanitary disposal. The heat from the cat’s solid waste was harnessed to power small thrusters, which the cat was able to direct through an ingenious piece of headgear. They were dire amenities, indeed.

This mechanical diaper weighed three times more than the cat, and therefore, it was impossible to fully test the device until they were in a microgravity environment—something that caused most of the other crew members to express grave concern. The idea of three years in a small vessel with unconstrained cat feces was understandably daunting.

That there were any crew members beyond Flinders, Franklin, and Trim requires some explanation. When Flinders demanded his cousin’s presence as a condition of accepting command of the expedition, he was acting under entirely nepotistic impulses. Flinders would have been just as happy flying the mission alone with his cat, but he wanted to help his cousin out. ‘It’s a goddamn golden ticket to the chocolate factory,’ he said, by way of encouragement. And eventually, Franklin did agree to accompany him.