Reflecting his diverse career, John Conway plays various roles throughout the novel. He is, at times, a guide to Anthony, showing him how his team fixes broken cables, while at others, he teaches Anthony about human connection and identity. His relationship with Anthony is tenuous, and at various moments in the novel, he acts as an antagonist toward him. Conway is also Zanele’s love interest, and his love for and commitment to her demonstrates how his character often looks towards a bigger picture: “He thought all the prospect of discovery lay with her. The shine had not worn off him: he had simply refracted it all upon her. I figured that was what Conway was about—his mind went beyond the horizon of himself and landed elsewhere” (27). Conway constantly thinks of others and focuses on what is happening around him. This not only defines his relationship with Zanele, whom he praises endlessly to Anthony, but also with his crew, who trust and admire him. This kind of thinking applies to the cables as well, with Conway considering how they connect and disconnect the world. Though he primarily focuses on repairing those that are broken, he also reflects on how his actions tend to break others who depend too much on that connection.

This idea that the cables actually do harm is one that Conway cannot shake and becomes lost in, making him a dynamic character who grows and changes throughout the novel. His flight from the Georges Lecointe is a mystery, but it ends with him severing two cables and dying in the depths of the ocean. Anthony struggles to fully understand how Conway reaches this point but suspects that it coincides with his separation from Zanele. He theorizes that Conway could no longer situate himself in the world: “[T]ime took hold of him and turned him inside out. Things began to slip further and further. His brain quaked. It must have been an interior landslide. He lost equilibrium. He was unable to tell up from down” (220). Anthony’s mention of Conway’s brain quaking and there being an internal landslide echoes the underwater landslide that severs the first cable and begins their journey. He suspects that Conway felt a break in his connection to the world after the break in his connection to Zanele. He believes that the cables, and the systems they help establish in society, are contributing to a degradation not only in the environment but also in people’s connections with each other.

Zanele is the love interest of John Conway, and like John, she is at times a guide to Anthony. She makes an impression on Anthony when they first meet, and he is amazed by her charisma and confidence. He sees her as a unique presence in his life and finds that she holds a special power over him: “She laughed as she said it, quite possibly a nervous laugh, but it was also the laughter of someone who had seen some things that were entirely incommunicable, and still it felt as if everything wrong ever done could be washed away in her laughter” (20). In Zanele, Anthony sees the legacy of apartheid in South Africa as well as a hopeful view of the future. Her commitment to art that sheds light on the climate crisis demonstrates her investment in the future. Anthony also believes that Zanele is the key to understanding Conway, and he often thinks of their relationship and how it influences how Conway sees the world around him. Part of Zanele’s role in the novel is as a means for Anthony to better understand what happens around him.

In some ways, Zanele is a foil to Conway when it comes to their perspectives on repair. Conway believes that repair is inevitable and his role in fixing broken cables essential to society’s function informing his view, while Zanele believes that repair is not a given, and the effort to repair is more important: “Zanele had landed on a notion that I thought I might be able to carry with me: the wonder of things is that they were ever created in the first place […] Everything is made to be disassembled. Not all of it can be repaired. All there is is the trying” (234). Just as Conway believes that repair is inevitable, Zanele believes that breaking is a given. She acknowledges that not everything can be fully repaired, but the effort to do so has value. In this instance, she becomes a guide to Anthony, as he takes what she says and believes he can apply it to his own life and his relationship with his son. Once again, he sees in Zanele someone with a unique perspective on life, and he values her view of the world. He can see in this moment how the differences between her and Conway may have driven them apart. While Zanele can accept the coexistence of repair and destruction, Conway is more strict, always working in one direction, and they serve as important contrasts to each other.

Petrus is one of the crew members of the Georges Lecointe and represents the connection Conway has with the men. Conway is a great leader aboard the ship, not only because of the trust he puts in his men but also because of the empathetic attitude he takes towards them. When Petrus’s mother dies, Anthony witnesses Conway and the crew perform a memorial service for Petrus. Anthony is surprised by Petrus’s reaction to it: “Petrus sang along, then bowed his head. After a moment, his chest began to heave. Petrus seemed far too old to still have a mother, and far too much a working man to weep in public, but sometimes we forget that we have blood inside us until it emerges” (91). Petrus’s expression of grief surprises Anthony because of the environment they find themselves in. On a ship with a crew comprised only of men with blue-collar jobs, Anthony does not expect to see a man crying in front of others. He expects a firmly masculine response and realizes that Conway helps to cultivate an environment that values human connection and emotion, where the crew members can be themselves and support each other. He is a static character, not playing a large role in the novel, but he is an important reflection of Conway’s character and his beliefs.