What do you do when your one-man spaceship loses an argument with a meteor, and the only way to repair the rudder demands two people? “The Seventh Voyage” is the eleventh tale of Stanisław Lem’s space traveler Ijon Ticvhy, but I believe it’s the first where the hero also wrangles with time.
—Michael Main
— Zaraz — odparł wolno, nawet nie ruszając palcem. — Dzisiaj jest wtorek. Jeżeli ty jesteś środowy i do tej chwili we środę jeszcze nie są naprawione stery, to z tego wynika, że coś przeszkodzi nam w ich naprawieniu, ponieważ w przeciwnym razie, ty, we środę, nie nakłaniałbyś już mnie do tego, abym ja, we wtorek, wspólnie je z tobą naprawiał. Więc może lepiej nie ryzykować wyjścia na zewnątrz?
translate “Just a minute,” I replied, remaining on the floor. ”Today is Tuesday. Now if you are the Wednesday me, and if by that time on Wednesday the rudder still hasn’t been fixed, then it follows that something will prevent us from fixing it, since otherwise you, on Wednesday, would not now, on Tuesday, be asking me to help you fix it. Wouldn’t it be best, then, for us to not risk going outside?”

Tags

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Variants

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  1. “Podróż siódma” by Stanisław Lem, in Niezwyciężony i inne opowiadania by Stanisław Lem (Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej, 1964).
    2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Stanisław Lem
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . translated by Michael Kandel

Translations

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  1. English.
    “The Seventh Voyage” by Stanisław Lem, in The Star Diaries by stanisław Lem (The Seabury Press, 1976).
    2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Stanisław Lem

Indexer Notes

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  1. English Copyright Date—The Star Diaries, which is the first English translation of a significant portion of the 1977 collection Dzienniki Gwiazdowe, is sometimes cited as 1971, but that is a misunderstanding of the copyright page, which states: “English Translation ©1976 by the Seabury Press, Inc. . . . Original Edition: Dzienniki Gwiazdowe, published by Czytelnik, Warsaw, 1971.” This English collection was translated by Michael Kandel and uses the Polish spelling of Stanisław Lem with the letter ł. Later reissues use the English variant Stanislaw Lem.