Check out "Story of your life" by the same author.
Ur'f znqr nyvraf jub jbhyq cebonoyl bcrengr ol GQG, zl cuvybfbcuvpny dhvooyrf jvgu GQG abgjvgufgnaqvat.
Hmm, just read that story before checking your spoiler and it was interesting, even despite the author's poor grasp of the physics he tried to explain. A light ray going from point A to point B is not taking the shortest path (measured in time) because it wants to reach B, the point B is merely a point on the geodesic curve the light ray is currently travelling along.
In other words, these light rays are taking the least time to reach the points they pass without intending to reach them, the points are just in the way.
That said, thanks for the recommendati...
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm?2. 15-30 min read time, rated "pretty good" by me.
There are a couple of interesting features of this story that I would like to discuss - but I don't want to introduce any spoilers, so I'll just leave this here for now.