The novel “The Ballad of Beta-2” by Samuel R. Delany was published for the first time in 1965.

A expedition of starships that left in 2242 for a multi-generational journey had a negative result. Two of the starships arrived without passengers, killed by mysterious causes. The passengers survived on the other starships reached their destination but only to find settlers who arrived before them thanks to a faster-than-light propulsion developed after their departure.

Joneny is a student charged by his anthropology professor to make a historical analysis of one of the ballads that tell the story of the expedition of the “Star Folk”, “The Ballad of Beta-2”. Joneny starts investigating to find the sources of the ballad, with the difficulty that the text was modified over time. His findings will be truly amazing, also thanks to a strange encounter.