Alan is a middle-aged entrepreneur in contemporary Toronto, who has devoted himself to fixing up a house in a bohemian neighborhood. This naturally brings him in contact with the house full of students and layabouts next door, including a young woman who, in a moment of stress, reveals to him that she has wings--wings, moreover, which grow back after each attempt to cut them off.
"I tell you, comrades," the speaker was shouting, "the time has come when we must revolt. We must battle to the death with the wearers of the purple. Why work out our lives down here so they can live in the lap of luxury over our heads? Why labor day after day at the oxygen generators to give them the fresh air they breathe?"
A crew from the Astral Horizons Initiative encounters a rogue planet drifting in the empty darkness between galaxies, with no sun or source of light. As they descend to explore, they find themselves trapped by an unnatural blackness that absorbs all energy, rendering their ship and equipment useless. When engineer Jamal travels to the surface with a team they realize they may be unable to escape. Strange shadows and visions invade their minds, revealing that the planet is a sentient void feeding