Summary of Space is Deep by Seth Chambers
Clarkesworld #232 January 2026
“`Kyle Murphy works aboard the Spin Station Selfridge, a budget spin station where residents must suit up for spacewalks to commute between areas. He lives with his two wives, Shari and Beth, who all signed one-year contracts after their house burned down and they became homeless. The job offered an escape from their desperate circumstances, though Kyle never dreamed of becoming an astronaut.
The story begins when Kyle notices something disturbing: his feet look strange and alien, yet somehow beautiful. He hides them in his grip socks, fearing either a medical condition or hallucination. He doesn’t tell his wives because Beth would panic and contact Central, potentially landing them all in quarantine. Instead, he suits up and heads to work, commuting via spacewalk—his favorite part of the job despite his fear of space.
Key Plot Points
- Kyle and his wives face a critical decision: in fourteen cycles, the Hermes III will dock, offering their one chance to return to Earth
- A woman named Penelope is pursuing a relationship with Kyle and his wives, but she stayed in space too long and can never return to Earth’s gravity
- Kyle’s feet continue to transform, and the change begins spreading to his legs
- His wives and Penelope attempt to seduce him into staying, knowing that adding Penelope means committing to life in space forever
- Kyle reveals his transformed feet during the seduction attempt, disrupting their plans
Throughout the narrative, Kyle reflects on space as both beautiful and terrifying—always searching for the tiniest flaw to exploit, always trying to “rip you apart.” He describes how space represents the .00001 percent failure rate in their supposedly safe mobility suits. The station operates on tight budgets, with minimal gravity and few pressurized tunnels, unlike the upscale spin stations.
Kyle is torn about his future. He wants to return to Earth with his wives, use their astronaut pay to buy a new house with proper insurance, and resume normal life. But his wives are considering Penelope’s proposal, which would mean staying in space forever. Penelope is trapped—she signed a lifetime contract thinking she’d love space, but now suffers nightmares about dying in the vacuum. She’s desperate for companionship and clings to Kyle’s family as her only hope.
After a confrontation where Kyle shows them his alien feet, he has a vivid dream of floating in space in his pajamas, nearly naked, about to be struck by a massive asteroid. He wakes alone, his wives already at work. Looking at his body, he realizes the transformation has spread further up his legs.
In a moment of cosmic revelation, Kyle understands what’s happening: space found a microscopic opening in his suit—not large enough for air to escape, but enough for a particle to enter. He realizes all particles in the universe were once joined before the Big Bang and remain connected across any distance, dancing together in quantum entanglement. The cosmos itself is flowing through his body, transforming him into something that contains infinity.
The story concludes with Kyle achieving a transcendent state of consciousness where he experiences himself as both ancient and newly born, connected to all particles in the universe. When Penelope crawls into bed with him, apologizing repeatedly, Kyle—now perceiving himself as “Mother and Father to All That Is”—hears one of his children crying out not to die alone in space. His heart, “great as the Milky Way,” breaks for her, suggesting he has accepted his transformation and perhaps his fate to remain in space with those he loves.