Pandora: Liminal Space Book 2

Chapter Thirty-Four

There was really no good way to bring this next part up, so Garrett didn't try to be subtle. "Have you talked to Glinda lately?"

Glinda "The Good Witch" MacArthur was the Neptune's head psychiatrist, and had made it a point to talk to each and every one of the passengers at some point on the journey to Pandora. She specialized in family psychiatrics, and had tried to set up an appointment with the Helmses several times, only to be politely rebuffed by Jonah. Cody was still too young to be required to get therapy for his condition and Jonah was almost as good as Garrett at avoiding doing things he didn't want to do.

"No. I will, though."

"I've heard that before."

Jonah sat up suddenly, tugging his feet out of Garrett's hands. His usually open, handsome face was totally closed off, and his warm brown eyes were flinty. "I don't need you fallin' into line and tellin' me what to do too, Garrett. I've been dealing with this on my own every since I got Cody and I can deal with it a while longer without gettin' my head shrunk by some damn know-it-all who wants to talk to me about the stages of fuckin' grief, like I should be thinking about puttin' my son in the ground already—" He stopped abruptly, his lips pressed into a tight line, then got up and began pulling on his socks. "I have to go and get Cody."

Garrett wisely didn't mention that Cody wasn't due to be picked up for another hour. "I'll be going, then." Garrett had never made his lover really upset before and he didn't like that he had now, but at the same time he knew he was right about Jonah seeing a counselor, and if he stayed he and Jonah would just keep arguing about it.

"Probably smart," Jonah agreed tersely.

"Are you going to hold a grudge over this?"

Jonah blew out a harsh breath. "I doubt it," he said honestly, "but I also really just want to see my boy right now."

His boy. Which of course Cody was, while Garrett was just Cody's occasional playmate/babysitter when his dad's schedule allowed for them to be together. Garrett didn't want to be a father figure, but he didn't like the idea that he was nothing better than a glorified toy either.

Now he was the one being unfair. Yeah, their evening was very definitely over. "Fine. I'll see you later." Garrett got off the couch and walked over to the door, where he had left his shoes. Simple, easy, no fuss and he was back together and leaving, with no sign of his ever having been there apart from a second plate on the counter.

"Garrett." A gentle hand on his arm stopped him with the door half open, and Garrett turned to look at Jonah. "Tomorrow night?" Jonah asked hopefully. "I'm off all day, we could go somewhere as soon as you're out of the lab. Maybe one of the restaurants in town?"

Jonah had been trying to persuade Garrett to see more of The Box since they'd first arrived, with little success so far. He didn't want to get to know Pandora City. He didn't care about Pandora City. He was here to work and he was trying to play, and getting to know the nooks and crannies of all human civilization on this planet wasn't high on his list of things to accomplish.

But Jonah was trying, and Garrett had to give a little too. "Sure. You can pick, you know what Cody will like best."

"Thank you." Jonah leaned in and brushed their lips together, and it was hard, so hard for Garrett not to deepen the kiss, not to lean in and take more of what he wanted, to demand it from Jonah as though it was his right to claim it. Hell, he didn't even know what "it" really was, he just knew that he wanted it and was being denied.

For the best, for the best, for the best.

Oh well. At least if his evening was ending early he could get some more work done. That would increase the chances that he'd be off shift on time tomorrow. Garrett's work schedule had improved some since arriving on Pandora, but it was still very irregular, and prone to change based on Martina's latest whim.

The lab was, to put it succinctly, a fucking mess. There were still crates upon crates of equipment waiting to go to the new lab, and two of the biologists were having a fit about misplaced slides and inconsistent data as Garrett signed in. Naturally, there were still people up and about. And yes—there was Martina, all sound and fury in the center of it. Lawrence was nowhere to be seen, which was a shame. Garrett liked talking to the other man, and he had a way of making difficult situations clearer that his wife simply didn't share.

One of the biologists, the hapless Andrews of old that Martina had been breaking down on Garrett's first day, was vehemently defending himself against an older scientist who Garrett thought was named Ruxin—whether it was a first or last name he wasn't sure—and Martina was yelling at them both, but looked up when Garrett walked in.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"Getting some work done," he replied, stepping past her and heading back towards his section of the lab.

"Oh no, you aren't."

That pulled him up short. "I never thought I'd hear those words come out of your lips."

"The lab is transitioning to Pandora City's power grid tonight," Martina explained. "Just the lab, none of the rest of the ship yet, because we have special protocols. No one can have any of their equipment turned on during the process. I assume you've backed up all your data?"

"My data logs are pristine."

"Good." Her eyes narrowed. "As long as you're here, you can help us move some things around. We're looking for the case of hydrogen fuel cells."

"Sounds like fun."

"It's not. Get to work."

Technically Garrett didn't have to do this kind of grunt work, it wasn't in his contract, but he honestly didn't have anything better going for him. He joined in shifting and searching through hard, heavy shipping crates and plastic containers filled with everything from test tubes to live worms. After perhaps a half an hour of joyless searching and repositioning, the lights suddenly went out.

"Damn it," Martina swore. "The engineering bay was supposed to let me know before they turned things off."

"How dare they," Garrett chimed in companionably. He could feel Martina's glare even though he couldn't see it.

They sat and waited in the dark for one minute, then two, then three...Martina was on her com and shouting into it when the power came back on.

The power didn't come on slowly, the room didn't gradually light up; it wasn't even merely bright. The new grid's power surged through the lab like a firestorm, far too much current for the local transistors to handle. The embedded electronics blew out of the walls like a row of firecrackers going off, scattering debris and raining sparks into the room. The surfaces were all fire-resistant, but the intensity of the explosions was such that some of them started to burn anyway.

"Grab the crates and move them into the hall!" Martina shouted.

"This isn't the time to be worried about stuff!" Garrett shouted back at her. The other two scientists seemed to agree, and as smoke began to fill the room and alarms started to sound, Andrews and Ruxin fled through the doors into the relative safety of the secured hall beyond. Garrett watched them leave, then turned back to his boss.

"Martina," Garrett began, but she wasn't there anymore. The smoke was starting to obscure his vision but he thought he saw the edge of her lab coat moving a few meters away. "Martina!"

"I have to save the fuel cells," she insisted stridently, fear and fury warring for control in her voice. "We desperately need them for the hospital in case of blackouts and they're the only ones we'll have until the next transport ship, and that's not for—"

Another explosion rocked the lab as the fire spread into a crate that contained things that were decidedly flammable.

"We have to leave, now!" Stumbling forward and reaching blindly, Garrett grabbed for Martina and finally found her arm. "Right now!"

"No!"

"Yes!" Garrett turned, and saw a sudden bright white chemical fire flare into life inside one of the nearby crates. He had just enough time to throw himself back into Martina and begin to turn his head before the crate exploded.

A second later there was a sharp, slicing impact followed by utter darkness, and the very beginnings of excruciating pain. Garrett's body quickly decided that it was unbearable, and after only a moment of agony he lost consciousness.