Memoirs of a Space Traveler

Translated by Joel Stern and Maria Swiecicka-Ziemianek

A.B.E-Book

Contents

The Eighteenth Voyage

The Twenty-fourth Voyage

Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy

I

II

III

IV

V (The Washing Machine Tragedy)

Doctor Diagoras

Let Us Save the Universe (An Open Letter from Ijon Tichy)

The expedition I want to write about now was, in its consequences and scale, the greatest of my life. I am well aware that no one will believe me. But, paradoxical as it may seem, the Reader’s disbelief will facilitate my task. Because I cannot claim that I achieved what I intended to achieve. To tell the truth, the whole thing turned out rather badly. The fact that it was not I who bungled, but certain envious and ignorant people who tried to thwart my plans, does not ease my conscience any.

So, then, the goal of this expedition was the creation of the Universe. Not some new, separate universe, one that never before existed. No. I mean this Universe we live in. On the face of it, an absurd, an insane statement, for how can one create what exists already and what is as ancient and irreversible as the Universe? Could this be — the Reader is likely to think — a wild hypothesis stating that till now nothing has existed except Earth, and that all the galaxies, suns, stellar clouds, and Milky Ways are only a mirage? But that’s not it at all, because I really did create everything, absolutely Everything — and thus Earth, too, and the rest of the Solar System, and the Metagalaxy, which would certainly be cause for pride, if only my handiwork did not contain so many flaws. Some of these lie in the building material, but most are in the animate matter, particularly in the human race. This has been my greatest regret. True, the people I shall mention by name interfered in my efforts, but by no means do I consider myself thereby absolved. I should have planned, supervised, seen to everything more carefully. Especially since there is now no possibility for correction or improvement. Since October 20 of last year, I am to blame for all — and I mean all — the constructional defects in the Universe and the warps in human nature. There is no escape from that knowledge.

It all began three years ago, when through Professor Tarantoga I met a certain physicist of Slavic descent from Bombay. A visiting professor. This scientist, Solon Razglaz, had spent thirty years in the study of cosmogony, that branch of astronomy that deals with the origin and early formation of the Universe.

Razglaz reached, after a thorough study of the subject, a conclusion that stunned even him. As we know, theories of cosmogony can be divided into two groups. One comprises those theories that regard the Universe as eternal — in other words, devoid of a beginning. The second holds that at one time the Universe arose in a violent manner, from the explosion of a Proto-atom. There have always been difficulties with both views. Regarding the first: Science possesses a growing body of evidence that the visible Universe is from twelve to twenty billion years old. If something has a definite age, there is nothing simpler than to calculate back to its zero moment. But an eternal Universe can have no “zero,” no beginning. Under the pressure of new information, most scientists now opt for a Universe that arose from fifteen to eighteen billion years ago. Initially there was a substance — call it Ylem, the Proto-atom, whatever — that exploded and gave rise to matter and energy, stellar clouds, spiral galaxies, and dark and bright nebulae, all floating in rarefied gas filled with radiation. This can be precisely and neatly determined as long as no one asks, “But where did the Proto-atom come from?” For there is no answer to this question. There are certain evasions, yes, but no self-respecting astronomer is satisfied with them.