Brightness Falls from the Air

by James Tiptree Jr.

They have gathered now on Damien and are about to witness the last rising of a man-made nova. They are sixteen humans in a distant world about to be enveloped by an eruption of violence—horror and murder, oddly complemented by a bizarre, unforgiving love. But justice is not all that they're about to find. Judgment is coming, and the sixteen unsuspecting ones are on the threshold of the murdered star.