In his three-room rocket, Ijon Tichy traverses the depths of space. Tichy has just finished his new assistant, when she proves to be unruly. Instead of helping him control the rocket, she crash lands on the inhospitable planet Torkov.
A defect in his cryogenic sleep chamber causes space pilot Ijon Tichy to wake up as an old man aged by 30 years. Tichy worries about the return flight, another 30 years - he won't survive.
A rather minor incident has rather major consequences when Tichy gets caught in a time loop. The defect in the control module is impossible for Tichy alone to fix, so it's good that he has now company from Tuesday's and Wednesday's Tichy.
Christmas in space - and the rocket is full of dirt and waste. Tichy finds a device in the garbage that teleports him to a congress of various space races. There he is to make a plea for the admission of humans. Tichy does his best.
Tichy and his Halluzinelle have the best possible chance of winning the robotics competition on the planet Prozytien. But he didn't think about his stubborn assistant.
