Note: First published in the 1960 collection "Einsteinův mozek". Later editions use a more modern declination in the title "...kapitána Nema".

Synopsis: Celebrated spaceman and his crew, lately without work as planets were conquered, are sent on a thousand-year expedition to meet aliens who makes stars go nova in their trail. They explain they just travelled to find mankind's answers to "pricipal questions of life"; are disappointed by an unbelieving assistant's gung-ho actions and continue elsewhere. Back on Earth, thoroughly unheroic now, his feats are forgotten but his son, a blind composer cared for by his wife both of whom he had neglected, became famous posthumously.