People have to consider the consequences of their actions—but it’s impossible to consider all of the consequences.

Four Years Ago
Bartholomew Nyquist parked his aircar in one of the hoverlots at the end of the neighborhood. The Dome was dark this morning, even though someone should have started the Dome Daylight program. Maybe they had, deciding that Armstrong was in for a “cloudy” day—terminology he never entirely understood, given that the Moon had no clouds and most people who lived here had been born on the Moon and had never seen a cloud in their entire lives.
He grabbed his laser pistol from the passenger seat, where he always kept it when he was traveling. He tucked the gun into his shoulder holster, hidden under his already rumpled suit coat, and got out of the car.
The neighborhood looked even darker than it should have, sprawled below him like something out of those Christmas Dickens plays his ex-wife loved so much. All it needed was some sooty smoke coming out of chimneys above each house to be authentically dreary.

read more