Urth Net
BETA-2
↰ answers Robert Patterson
· by quotation
5 quoted lines
Don't forget
Samuel R. Delany: THE BALLAD OF BETA 2
This would fall sorta into the "Colonies from " category, though like Long Sun, the colonists still live in the ship.
Good call, Robert Patterson! Refresh my memory further: IIRC, BB2 is about an anthropologist (from Terra or the civilized sphere) who is examining the hulk of the colony ship in orbit--I remember he translated one doorway label as "sacrifice to the water gods" or something like that, a literal take on "navigation." His primary clues are contained within the epic poem of the colonists (I thought they were on the ground by then). So it is a "discovery of Troy" type of deal, in the sense of using garbled heroic poetry to figure out what happened on the long voyage.
So spill it: what happened to the colonists (I remember something about some unexpected radiation washing over the ship out in the void)? And any other details you can recollect (how long was the voyage, what target star, etc.).
=mantis=
*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.