The Silence Before I Sleep
Novella 25,812 words Recommended by 4 award/anthology sources
"Before I bothered traveling for six months to see it for myself, Sunfire had been described to me in glowing terms as a palace in the sky. Phrases like that immediately trigger my alarms. I begin to suspect that someone’s trying to sell me something."
Quasar links out; the story lives on Analog, where the author gets the click.