The Wind from a Burning Woman
Bear, Greg. "The Wind from a Burning Woman." Analog October 1978. Collected The Wind from a Burning Woman. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1983.[1] NYC: Ace, 1984. For translations, other collections, and reprints, see Internet Speculative Fiction Database, on line as of June 2022 here.[2]
Listed in Benford and Zebrowski's Skylife: Space Habitats in Story and Science. Brief Wikipedia citation here.[3]
From blurb on Amazon.com
The asteroid Psyche was to become mankind's first vessel to the stars. It was equipped with engines and was to be hollowed out to support generations of interstellar travelers. But before its completion, a strange sickness overcame the construction crew, leading to mutiny and halting the project permanently. Was it madness caused by long periods in a near weightless environment, or sabotage? Now, five years later, GianiTurco, granddaughter of the project's administrator, has commandeered Psyche, restarted its engines, and put it on a collision course with Earth. She has promised to alter the asteroid's destructive course only after Earth's government discloses publicly what really happened on Psyche. [...][4]
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
See also "Scattershot," originally published Universe 8, ed. Terry Carr (NYC: Doubleday, 1978); for translations and other reprints, see Internet Speculative Fiction Database entry for the title, as of Summer 2022, here.[5] Identified by Bear on his website as "a tribute to legendary female science fiction writer James Tiptree Jr."[6] Note the opening line, quoted by Bear op. cit., "The teddy bear spoke excellent Mandarin" and compare and strongly contrast with Brian Aldiss's "I Always Do What Teddy Says." If "The Wind's" Psyche can be seen as a story with a generation starship as setting and premise, "Scattershot" might be read as a variation on the theme of generation starship, in a proto-postmodern or New Wave mode, with overlapping universes and a growing ship that is both static and gets around a lot.
RDE, finishing, 15Jun22; 19Aug22