“Freediver” by Isabel J. Kim
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Story can be read on-line: https://reactormag.com/freediver-isabel-j-kim/
Rating: 3/5 Stars.
A story about two people whose job it to repair undersea cables. But in this world, for unstated reasons, the ocean ends a hundred metres below and becomes space but forty-five billion light years away. The cables ‘hang’ in space, safe from dangers from the ocean, but not from space.
The story starts with the two people, one of whom recently joined the ship, while the other is mourning the loss of his partner, who leaves his for land. They are still getting to know each other when a crisis develops, and they have to do major repairs on the cables. But to do so, one of them will have to cross the ocean and go into space to fix the cables. And space is not without its own dangers.
Story read from 2026/08/13 to 2026/08/14.