Herbert Scott is a fifteen-year-old boy who has a youthful fascination with astronomy, but is otherwise a normal child. However, he has now started enjoying psychic skills in the field of precognition. Armed with this ability, producers have put together a reality TV show in which Herbert is filmed talking directly to the camera and making predictions about random events such as earthquakes, which Herbert claims will happen in the near future. . As these predictions always come true, Herbert and the television show become wildly successful.
Despite this praise, one day Herbert refused to allow himself to be photographed or broadcast. Without giving any reason, he flatly refuses to play his normal role. After intense and brutal psychological pressure, he is forced to give in; The force exerted on Herbert to perform on camera serves its purpose in heightening the atmosphere of fear and terror around this story. Despite this pressure and his own denials, when Herbert broadcasts his weekly predictions of the near future, he astonishes his viewers by predicting an immediate, and dramatic, paradigm shift that will disrupt the familiarity of everyday life. , From ugly situations the world turns into utopia. Greed and hatred will vanish; And resources would rather be spent on wasteful competition, and on worldwide preparations for war, for the bountiful enjoyment of all.
Herbert's broadcast generates a sensational global response, as his predictions are rebroadcast around the world and millions of viewers are convinced that he can read the future accurately. The boy and an unnamed narrator, pursued by jubilant fans, are forced to take refuge in a high-rise hotel located near the broadcast studios. The jubilant crowd cheers Herbert from the very bottom; Near the top of the building, all he and the narrator can see is the sun and sky.
The narrator asks Herbert why he was extremely reluctant to release his forecast for that week. The boy responds with a confession that, although his premonitions up to this point had been accurate, this one would not be; He deliberately lied to his television viewers. With growing dread, the narrator learns that Herbie has in fact looked into the future for days to come and saw something else that he did not want to describe or share. Similar to the pressure put on Herbert by the television producers, the narrator demands to know what it is.
Herbert reports that he has seen a sight in the near future that he could not understand until his childhood research in astronomy explained it to him: he has learned of something called a nova. What he really saw, and didn't want to tell his audience, was that "tomorrow - the sun is going to explode."