num_pages: 124
description: Centuries ago, the Star Folk had left Earth on twelve spaceships on a generations-long mission to colonize the distant stars. Ten of the ships had reached their destinations. Two had failed-and nobody, in the hundreds of years since the disaster, had the slightest inkling of what had happened. ~ ~~ ~ Joneny, a student of galactic anthropology, was assigned the problem. It had seemed routine to him. Just some faster-than-light travel to the two wrecked ships, a bit of poking around, and then writing up his findings. ~ ~~ ~ But he was ill-prepared for what he found in space at the site of the two ancient wrecks. One, the Sigma-9, was not subject to the laws of time-stasis (the only exception to a universal law), and it was covered entirely with a mysterious green fire that shimmered so much that it seemed alive! And the other ship, the Beta-2, was nowhere to be found. Only a fragment of a mysterious poem could possibly provide a clue.
language: English
title: The Ballad of Beta 2
titlecomplete: The Ballad of Beta 2
genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Space Opera, Collections, Science Fiction Fantasy, Space, Novels, Sci Fi Fantasy, Novella
ratings_count: 786
awards: awardedAt: -157737600000
name: Nebula Award
category: Best Novella
publisher: Ace