Boy, this has been a long time in the making! Years ago, as I was finishing work on the Formist series, I began working on my next project: Transverse. For years, I worked on it, but found that I was only moving the ball incrementally forward. And then life intervened when my wife had a stroke brought on by kidney disease. As you can imagine, this left little time or energy for creative writing.

However, as things got easier in our lives, I found myself returning to my Work-In-Progress (WIP). And a few months ago, I found the creative energy to finish chapter after chapter! As I write this post, I am nearing the completion of this project. In the spirit of this, I wanted to give you all a preview of my WIP by offering the first few chapters.

To recap, Transverse takes place aboard a Generation Ship en route to the not-so-distant system of Delta Pavonis. This Sun-like star is roughly 20 light-years from Earth and currently has no confirmed exoplanets, making it perfect for writing fiction. In my story, this star is named Tōnatiuh by the ship’s crew, which is Nahuatl for “Fifth Sun” (since it’s the fifth Sun-like star beyond the Solar System), and also the name of the Aztecs’ Sun god.

The world they are looking to settle is Delta Pavonis d, the third planet from the star, which they’ve named Çatalhöyük after the ancient neolithic settlement, one of the earliest known human settlements (dated to ca. 7500 BCE). The people aboard are highly advanced, led by a team of 9 Engineers and thousands of crew who tend to the ship on a rotational basis. While one-third of the Engineers and crew are awake, the others are kept in cryogenic preservation.

The rest, I hope, will become clear as the chapters go on…

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The doors opened onto a vast theatre, dark, but with glowing patches where strategically placed lamps hovered next to the walls. Their light catches small surface spaces across the cavernous room: cream-colored walls, dark wood panels, russet seat cushions. The level of illumination is intentionally kept low; to the point that it makes the space and the few hundred people seated just discernible. On the stage, the focal point of the whole place, the lights are slightly brighter, drawing attention to a backdrop that not currently in operation.

Over ten thousand seats fill the room, arranged in a typical half-moon crescent on the ground floor. Dube knows there are just as many located in the gallery above, along with boxes along the walls that offer an elevated view of the stage. The place is familiar, though he knew somehow that he had never been here before.

Of the handful of patrons who’ve made themselves at home, a few looked at him when he entered. Of these people, Dube could make out some facial features, thanks to the brightened screens of their folios. A handful have no faces, just irises that beam light at him from the active display diodes embedded in them.

Dube felt inexplicably confused. The atmosphere that filled the theatre seemed very much calm. So many people, sprawled out in a room not ordinarily intended for self-directed tasks. No one appeared to be talking or calling in anyone else’s direction. Just the sound of their breathing the circulation of the ship’s air.

And yet, Dube felt that a strange tingle of unease.

He could think of nothing to justify that feeling. He recognized the room, the people were not behaving threateningly in any way, and there was sufficient light to see by.

Walking down the central walkway, he looked left and right for a familiar face. Strangely, everyone looked alien to him. That did not seem right, but he still couldn’t think of anything to contradict what he was seeing.

He smiled when he finally saw someone he recognized.

“Welcome home, Obuya,” she said.

“Home?”

She looked at him queerly.

“Of course. This has always been our home.”

She said the words in such a matter-of-fact way, as if it were somehow academic.

“I’m confused.”

“Can you remember a time before we were here?”

Dube sighed. He seemed to remember images of a distant place. He terrain was alpine, undulating in every direction. Where it ended, a cool valley stretched almost to the horizon, abutted by another mountainous outcropping. The ground before him was covered in shrubs and dotted with all manner of Acacia and Eucalypt trees. The sensations began to pile on: the warm Sun on his face, the cool shadow of the Blue Mountains on his back. And he could feel a gentle breeze coming up from the valley, the smell of wildflowers and eucalyptus oil.

His eyes snapped opened and he beheld the landscape with a new sense of disapproval.

“This is not my home.”

“Not anymore,” said Edennu, sternly. “We brought it all with us.”

These words made Dube feel a strange tingle. How did she know what he was thinking? He had not linked with her, nor had she reached out to him. He tried to do so now but couldn’t get a connection. Reaching out, he found no bandwidth with which to do so either.

He looked around again, harder this time. Somewhere in the sleepy room, there had to be some clue to what was going on. He couldn’t remember what he was looking for when he came in, but suspected it was here somewhere. And then there was the matter of where he had been before. He tried to call up the mental image again; perhaps what he sought was there.

“The trees…” he whispered. “I remember Baobabs, Umkwakwa, and Cinnamonum. Bushwillow blossoms, as many as the stars.”

Edennu quickly retorted, almost chiding him.

“Don’t worry about the trees, Obuya. We brought them all with us.”

He didn’t know why, but her words made perfect sense to him. He inquired further.

“And the oxen? And the aurochs?”

“We brought them too, Obuya.”

“And the Sun,” he said queerly. “What about that?”

She shook her head. “No, Obuya. We didn’t bring that with us. We just have to hope they have enough for all of us.”

“They? Who are you talking about?”

She didn’t reply. Her eyes remained fixed on her book. Dube tried again.

“What did you mean by that? Sandra?”

Edennu went dark. Her physical form was still there. But what was behind it was gone. In the space she occupied, it was as if an absence had formed. Dube looked around the room and noticed that the same thing was happening in other places too. He also noted the way it was spreading. In every seat, in every corner, the people were still there – and yet, not.

The room followed too. The stage, the auditorium, the lights – all of it became bathed in the same interminable darkness. And soon, an ill sound followed. The still quiet gave way to a terrible scurrying, as if something was crawling through the airways.

“What is that?” he asked. Edennu did not answer. She had gone dark and quiet, like everyone else. Nothing around him would answer. The only thing making any noise now was the one thing he couldn’t identify, and that was getting louder the closer the darkness came to envelop him. It was not in the airwaves. It was all around him now.

It only stopped once the darkness completely encompassed him.

He felt surrounded. Enveloped.

Yet strangely, he was unafraid.

He could still breathe, still feel, and was aware of an emptiness that surrounded him. The protective bubble, and his ignorance of what lay beyond it, staved off panic. He was alone, submersed in complete quiet and total darkness.

It felt like an eternity. But then again, it was. For the average mortal, centuries of sleep qualified as an eternity…