Pandora: Liminal Space Book 2

Chapter Twenty-Four

Lila worked in silence for a while, focused on Garrett's hair. After a few minutes she tilted his head up so she could see his face, hummed and made a few more cuts, then put the scissors down and unfolded a flexible wraparound mirror. "Well, what do you think?"

Garrett examined his reflection. Huh, not bad. Not having all that hair was...different. It made him look sharper. You could have cut glass with his cheekbones.

"Stop bragging."

"Oh, sorry, did I say that part out loud?" Lila smacked him on the shoulder and he grinned, then looked again. It was long on top, comfortably non-military, but short enough on the back and sides to not fall against his sweat-soaked skin. "Could you shorten the sideburns some?"

"Sure." She got out the clippers and cut to where he indicated, brushed up the lines on his neck, then said, "Better?"

"Perfect."

"Are you positive you won't regret this once the climate controls are working again?"

"I strive not to regret anything ever," he assured her.

"Yes, I know." She got out a soft-bristled brush and wiped away the tiny hairs left along the edge of the pillowcase, then pulled the whole thing carefully away. "We got most of the small stuff. What do you want to do with the long pieces?"

"I don't know, incinerate them?"

Lila ran a finger down one of the sweat-soaked coils. "If they were clean they could be made into a wig."

"Who the hell needs a wig?"

"Almost any natural with cancer. The treatment is very hard on the body."

"Tell you what, you can have it," Garrett said magnanimously, shooing her towards the pile of hair. "Recompense for your services."

"How generous of you," she snarked. "Could I vacuum your couch and floor too?"

"I have robots for that, but thanks for the offer."

"Whatever." Lila repacked her kit, carefully gathered the hair, then stood up. "The pool is open, you know. It was cool before the temperature started climbing, but it can't be more than room temp now. Might be nice."

"There will be a million people there, then." He waved her away. "Maybe later. You go. Tell Shekar hello for me."

Lila rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to meet Shekar."

"Of course you aren't," he soothed her. "Still. When he finds you, please ask him whether he needs more specific variables for the simulation we're modeling."

"You. Shut it. Now!"

"Sorry. Bye, Lila. Thanks for your help."

"Sure." She didn't say anything else, just opened the door and left. Briefly Garrett feared that he might have pushed too hard, then dismissed it. Lila just didn't want to acknowledge that she had a lust-crazed stalker. If Shekar were anything other than the intelligent, sarcastic, emotionally-bumbling person that he was, Garrett might have have intervened, but watching Lila being courted by Shekar was like watching the antigrav on a speeding hoverbike cut in and out. You saw it crash and burn, then bounce and crash again, and then again, and then again...it was too guiltily intriguing not to marvel at.

Garrett lay his head back on the couch and stared at the ceiling for a moment before deciding that he needed to get out of his apartment. It was too quiet, too still. The central server had been showing a marathon of his mother's old movies lately, nothing he wanted to watch, and he'd seen his own collection a hundred times. He got up, ran a questing hand over his head, then grinned and pulled on some loose, lightweight pants. He knew he had a clean t-shirt lying around somewhere...yes. Now to find a skinroom.

Skinrooms were small, private chambers located on the outer surface of a ship. They were basically a floor-to-ceiling viewport, a thin spot in the hull where a person could stand and be surrounded by space. They were called skinrooms because standing in them was as close as many people ever got to actual exposure, and the viewport window panes were so thin that the freezing vacuum beyond could be hinted at. It was like being a part of the ship's skin, with no great hull to separate you, no yards of metal and foam insulation, just a slender pane of near-unbreakable glass.

The view disturbed some people, but for others the need to escape the press of walls was as essential as breathing. Federation colony ships were required to have skinrooms, since they had to cater to the mental needs of all their colonists and claustrophobia was scarcely uncommon. Garrett wasn't claustrophobic, but he did enjoy the view and he'd enjoy the sensation of coolness he could get there even more.

He made his way from the thirteenth level to the twenty-eighth, the highest that there was on the Neptune. There were skinrooms scattered throughout the hull of the ship, but the ones on the top side were the best, since they opened above you as well as around. The twenty-eighth level was used mostly for storage, and only maintenance crews really frequented it, but his ID badge gave him access.

Garrett made his way to the closest skin room, found it happily unoccupied, and stepped into the alcove. It was only four feet wide by ten tall, but as he moved closer to the viewport, the air turned to ice on his sticky, overheated skin, and he smiled with pleasure. Garrett leaned his forehead against the window and sighed deeply, letting his eyes wander into a soft focus and watching the stars blur into a swirling spiral of dark and light. It was perfect, quiet and meditative. He felt his mind relax with his body, and leaned further into the chill.

"Daddy, here's one—oh."

"Hush," a deeper, husky voice said softly. "Don't disturb 'im. We'll find another room, bucko, there's some not too far off."

"'kay."

You could stay, Garrett wanted to say. He didn't know who they were, but in that instant he was feeling so mellow that the prospect of sharing his space didn't bother him. By the time he turned around, though, they were gone. He shrugged and turned back, eventually folding to his knees and leaning his entire upper body into the window. He knelt there silently until the environmental controls came back on five hours later.

Garrett's knees ached as he walked back to his apartment, but it was totally worth it.