The Icerigger Trilogy

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THE MAN IN THE Antares bar-lounge didn’t quite bang his head on the curved star-ceiling on this, his fourth attempt. Or maybe it was his fifth. This failure came as a disappointment to a number of the luxurious lounge’s more vocal occupants.

When standing erect—a rare happenstance, of late—the fellow stood just under two meters tall. A haberdasher worth his salt would have estimated his mass at about two hundred kilos. This not counting the booze he’d been putting away at a prodigious rate. That he’d even managed to come close to the roof of the lounge and its simulacrum Terran sky was due in part to his considerable stature.

Starting from the far end of the lounge he’d make a mad elephant sprint toward the bar, leap onto the polished maplewood counter, and soar ceilingward from that deep-grained launch pad. A reach, stretch, grab, and down he’d come in a spectacular displacement of plastic bottles, glasses, and swizzle sticks. Whereupon he’d fight off the angry flailings of the robot bartender, now on the verge of electron psychosis, stagger between the tables, and try again.

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