"Perhaps it is the saddest, maddest, wildest story in the whole long history of space," our author it has to do with a very special form of space travel. Our hero is named Artyr if you think that there is a significant similarity here to the name of the French poet Arthur Rimbaud, you are correct! One of Rimbaud's longest and most famous poems is Le Bateau ivre, the title of which can be reasonably translated as Drunkboat.
