Every year four friends meet for lunch in Manhattan. At the end of the world should they change their plans? Or make new ones - for everyone.
The expedition to the alien world is failing. As the last human survivors confront their fate, a veteran of the conflict discovers a last path of survival.
Long ago and deep in the Northern British sea, a lost and frightened soul approaches a sleeping village. Is he an agent of disaster - or resistance?
A police trainee visits his nation's capital to collect an award for courage, and finds himself at the centre of a revolution.
A gangster faces assassination close to the place where he's always lived. Will the old ways save him?
Higher authorities ban an aristocrat from the premises of a great library. No reason is given. Out of curiosity the head of the library accepts a dinner invitation from the man. But there is a second guest. And in her terrible gaze the librarian now faces a whole other world of understanding.