Note: First published in 1966 coll Poslední cesty kapitána Nema.

Synopsis: The hero is offered a time machine by a group fighting "removal of private property" to undo his May 1945 action which they think brought the Red Army to Prague instead of the US one. It turns out, however, that historical progress is inevitable rather than depend on a single man. After increasingly grotesque jumps backwards through eras as the reactionaries discover they would have to start fixing history much earlier, the machine and they are lost in primeval fire, and the hero starts happily working in the nationalised factory of his father-in-law.