80s or 90s SF young urchin girl rescued by spacers

SOLVED- Spacer: Window of the Mind

I can't remember when I read this, it may have been in the late 80s or early 90s. I remember the main character was a young street urchin type girl who was rescued by a group of spacers (or maybe she rescued them or helped them hide and they took her with them in thanks) There may have been another ship (a military ship?) that they encounter with a stuffy captain/commander and she meets his young grandson (who might have had a Spanish sounding name, or I could be mixing books) There might also have been some aliens.

I remember at one point when she gets on their ship the doctor points out that she's small for her age because of malnutrition and growing up on the streets.

it was a paperback, can't remember the cover or anything.

thanks!

It's been ages since I read it, so this may be very off, but could you be referring to Joat - a character in Anne McCaffrey's The City who Fought - there is also a sequel The Ship Avenged by S.M Stirling where I believe she's all grown up (though I don't think I've read that one).

some off the details reminded me of Citizen of the Galaxy, but the street urchin in that book is a boy

thanks for taking the time to suggest them, but I've read both of those (and loved them) and they are not it :)

although I could be mixing up some McCaffrey in my brain, because I went through a heavy phase of her books as a kid.

sounds interesting, but that's not it, it was definitely a girl, and there wasn't a slave auction.

thanks though!

That's quite a common Andre Norton plot. It reminds me of a few, Yurth Burden in particular; ETA : damn I'm misremebering the plot of that story, and the titles aren't bringing up a book, It does sound like Andre Norton, not a Witch World novel but one of her 70s or 80s SF novels. It's at the edge of my mind. Later her output was mostly fantasy but early Andre Norton often features young kids who are marginalised and often find a bracelet that bonds to them and gives them added telepathic powers

I did read all of the Norton I could get my hands on during that time period, but for some reason I feel like it wasn't her, although it does sound vaguely Solar Queen-ish with the spaceport and group of spacers, but I don't remember any Solar Queen books with a young street girl (and it was definitely a young street urchin girl)

see now I'm tempted to read a chunk of my Andre Norton collection!

hah, do it, there's never a bad time for Andre Norton :)

I think this is Spacer: Window of the Mind by John Maddox Roberts (published April 1988). You had it right the first time - they rescued her at the beginning of the book. (She was making not much of a living running errands in a city that was mostly slum, and tried stealing something from a criminal employer. Bad move; she ran into Space Angel's crew while running from enforcers.) Her name is Kiril.

All the details you mention fit, including the malnutrition. (The medic puts her on a special diet of sorts, drinking special 'shakes' with supplements in them to counter that.)

The setting of the story is a few years after a major interstellar war. The economy (of the human worlds collectively) is in shreds, and Civis Astra (the slum where the story starts) isn't special. That is, it's bad, but so are a lot of places. Kiril being on her own at such a young age isn't unusual, and it's taken as a given that everybody has lost somebody in the war, although the book doesn't dwell on it.

The stuffy guy (Izquierda, rich corporate creep) is an old enemy of the Space Angel's skipper, going back to the war. You're also right about aliens being in the setting.

Technically it's a sequel to an earlier book (Space Angel) but it works as a stand-alone (I read them out of order, and I like Spacer better).

My guess is that you would've read the edition I have, which is the only one for which LibraryThing has cover art. The scene on the cover is part of the rescue at the beginning of the book. The big guy in what looks like armor is actually a Viver mercenary; he'd be insulted if you called him human. (The Vivers consider themselves superior, and work as mercenaries when young to prove themselves. The Angel hired two of them in the previous book's adventure, and they're still part of the crew.)

hey, I think that's it! Thank you so much, I've been randomly trying to remember that book for years :)

the cover definitely looks familiar, and the pub date fits in the time I would have read it.

ETA:
yep, that was definitely it!