In the old times Zeabot Baalovich Odin was among the top mages of the Earth. [..] Genie vessels was sealed with his. King Solomon wrote him fan letters and built temples for him. He seemed omnipotent. So somewhere in the middle of XIV century he actually became omnipotent. After solving the integrodifferential equation of Complete Perfection numerically (the equation itself was known since before the ice age) he got the ability to create any wonder.

Every mage's power has limits. Some are unable to remove hair from their ears. Some are capable of controlling the generalized Lomonosov-Lavoisier law yet are still powerless to do anything about the second law of thermodynamics. A few most talented ones can stop time, but only in a Riemannian space and only for a short time. Zeabot Baalovich became omnipotent. Yet he became incapable of doing anything. The border condition of the Perfection equation required the wonder to do no harm to any sentient being. Not on Earth, not in any other part of the universe. And nobody, not even Zeabot Baalovich himself, could imagine such a wonder. So he abandoned magic studies forever and became the chief technical support…

A&B Strugatsky, Monday starts on Saturday.