Assaulting Castles with Balloons

My apologies to the original author of this Portuguese but I like to think A Bertram Chandler would rather have enjoyed this google translation from the original Portuguese.

The Exterior Space (The Kidney of Space)
Of the contralayer: "They had said to it that it went to find people stranger enters the Knights of the Space well, in the border of the eternity. That in its majority they would be refugee of the Commission of Interstellar Transport, of the service of Cartography, the galactic Post office, the company of clippers... Derek Calver, however, was not imported. Proper it if considered a refugee of the commission.

E could have added that it was also to run away from the errors that had committed, of the chances that it wastes, of the dreams that leave to die.
Then, on board the Lorn Lady, equal an obsolete ship to as much others that for gave still service there, Calver finds Jane Arlen, that liked itself exactly to call "Calamity" Jane, and that it ran away from the men for being vain of whom all would bring disaster... "

A typical book where the hero if goes to take refuge for the confine of the civilization and faces the most terrible adventures since assaulting castles with balloons to run away to the claws of "galactic Mata-Hari". An efficient book in a construction of a universe, that counts the history of traders between strange civilizations.