Day Of Descent

Title: The Day Of Descent
Author: Judith Reeves-Stevens & Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Genre: SF, Tie-In
Series: Alien Nation (1)
Copyright: 1993
Ranking: ?Unranked
Binding: paperback
LibraryThing: Title:Day Of Descent WorkId 166322
Type: Owned
Quote:
It was the Ship. It had no other name. It had thousands. From Tencton legends, it was *lesh*, the hell where the flesh of those who turned their eyes from the three moons was seared in waves of salt water, only to be restored with each rising of the sun. It was *am dugas*, the pit that tempted Celine from Andarko, from which only their love had saved him. It was the *wask'l reckwi*, the knowing death of ancient times for those who died yet remained forever awake to the darkness that trapped them in an eternity of remembering the evil they had done. And there were other names, their numbers legion, more ancient than any Tencton legend and not from any Tencton language. Words of hatred and fear and despair and helplessness that came from the languages of other races that had been cargo in its hull, now ghosts whose death cries still echoed from the bulkheads, whose terror still pulsed through the choking air like the fluttering heartsbeat of a hunted animal run to ground. (opening passage)

This fills in background set before the series start.