Man The decade is presumably 2020–2030. A boy misses his astronaut father who often goes to space for periods of three months and is only home for a few days. His mother is no longer attached to her husband for she knows that some day he won't return home. After he returns home one day in August his wife cooks a tasty Thanksgiving meal - due to the rocket man's upcoming three-month absence - and the family spend a memorable evening together. That's the last time mother and son will see him. He dies in outer space, with his rocket having flown into the sun. The son and mother become nocturnal and only leave the house when the sun is not out, as it constantly reminds them of his death. The Fire Balloons A group of priests travels to Mars to act as missionaries to the Martians. They discover that the natives are entities of pure energy. Since they lack corporeal form, they are unable to commit sin, and thus do not need redemption. The Last Night of the World A married couple awaken to the knowledge that the world is going to end that very evening. Nonetheless, they go through their normal routines, knowing and accepting the fact that there is no tomorrow. The Exiles Numerous works of literature are banned and burned on Earth. The deceased authors of these books live in a kind of afterlife on Mars. Though dead, they are still vulnerable in the sense that when all of an author's works are destroyed, the author vanishes permanently. The authors learn that people are coming from Earth, and they stage their retribution. Their efforts are foiled when the astronauts burn the last remaining books, annihilating the entire colony. No Particular Night or Morning Two friends in a spaceship, Clemens and Hitchcock, discuss the emptiness and cold of space. The slightly eccentric Hitchcock embraces solipsism, and repeatedly insists that nothing in space is real and there is no night or morning. He refuses to believe anything about reality without sufficient evidence and soon becomes skeptical of everything he cannot directly experience. He says that he does not believe in stars, because they are too far away. Clemens learns that Hitchcock has left the ship. Hitchcock continues to mumble to himself as he dies of exposure to the void of space. The Fox and the Forest A couple