Pandora: Liminal Space: Book One, page 1
Pandora
Liminal Space: Book One
Cari Z
Warning: this book contains adult language and themes, including graphic descriptions of violence and sex. It is intended for mature readers only, of legal age to possess such material in their area.
This book is a work of fiction. All characters, companies, events, and locations are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places, or events is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author and publisher.
Pandora: Liminal Space Book One
Copyright 2024 by Cari Z
Cover Art by Fieriz Book Cover Designs
All rights reserved. No AI was used in the production of this book. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
About This Book
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
26. Chapter 26
27. Chapter 27
28. Chapter 28
29. Chapter 29
30. Chapter 30
31. Chapter 31
32. Chapter 32
33. Chapter 33
34. Chapter 34
35. Chapter 35
36. Chapter 36
37. Chapter 37
Bonded
About The Author
About This Book
In a universe where Regen can prolong life and health for centuries, death from anything other than violence or accidents is rare. People work, people play, and people ... get bored. Garrett Caractacus, a terraforming scientist and coddled general's son, is doing all those things, but the boredom is winning out. He needs a new challenge, something to take him away from the glamour and glitz of the life he's always known. Something different.
Something hard.
A trip to the Fringe world of Pandora, where he'll be part of a team of scientists ensuring that the planet is livable for the colonists headed there, sounds like just the thing. The colonists are naturals—people whose bodies reject Regen, who die of everything from an injury to a disease to old age. Ugh, sounds traumatizing. Garrett resolves to stay far away from them ... but a young boy named Cody and his father, Jonah, get past the walls around Garrett’s heart.
Soon Garrett will have a choice to make—return to the ease and comfort of a life in the Central System, or stay on Pandora and live, love, and make a family with someone he knows won't be with him for long.
Chapter one
Music sailed through the cool twilight air, spreading out from the source—a genuine string quartet, a touch of Central System elegance that everyone agreed was the pinnacle of class—and echoing through the streets in every direction. This was a place where sound, like light, spread across the land like water spread on other planets.
There was very little water to be had on this violent planet, but if the Alliance had their way, there would be peace.
Tonight was a special evening. An important evening, worthy of the expense of an imported, exclusively human string quartet. The inauguration of the first governor of the newest interstellar member of the Alliance, the ironically named Paradise, was the sort of event that attention-starved socialites and wealthy provincials longed for. Any distraction from day-to-day life on a rock that consisted mostly of barren desert, especially from those aspects concerning the reconstruction after the war, was pathetically welcome. Every dignitary, notable, and local politician who could wrangle an invitation had, and the brand-new governor’s mansion was packed with people wanting to see, be seen, and to work out their place in the new social pecking order.
Naturally, most of this sucking up was directed at the new governor, but there was plenty to go around for his family members. General Caractacus didn’t have much family, just a new young wife and a son from his first marriage. Claudia, said wife, was a constant at her husband’s side that evening, a vision in a shining pearl-white dress: sleek, beautiful, and attentive. Garrett, the governor’s son, was told he was just as beautiful as his new stepmother, but unlike her, he had made sure he was nowhere to be seen at the moment. He had slipped outside to the veranda and was staring out across the capital city of Rapture at bunker-like government buildings, glowing under two orange moons. He was alone and currently wondering why.
Garrett could only assume that it was because he must want it that way, and that was what was fucking with him. He never wanted to be alone. He was the quintessential social butterfly, an intrinsically gregarious creature who had to be the center of attention. He gloried in it; he craved it. Tonight was an evening he was made for.
But for some reason, he wasn’t comfortable working the crowd right now. It wasn’t thrilling him like it should. People flocked to him at any time: he knew he had a reputation as someone who was gorgeous, successful, and known for being generous with his company (others might call him a man whore, but they were usually the bitter ones he didn’t want to sleep with). This sort of event should have been his playground. Instead, he mostly felt tired of it.
Mood swings weren’t unusual for Garrett. He was as attuned to his blood chemistry as any scientist could be, but this time around was different. This felt like it had been building for a while. Weeks, maybe months. He was getting bored with playing. It was bizarre.
Probably the result of all the unwholesomely vanilla influences in his life lately. His father getting married to a pretty, adoring woman who Garrett actually liked. His ex and his ex’s lover turning into his closest friends, which was more than a little screwy, considering they never let him play with them. Not even when he asked nicely. Garrett sighed.
“Big sigh.”
Think of the devil … Garrett glanced over his shoulder. “Wyl. Don’t you have a big, strong marine you should be dancing with?”
“Please,” Wyl scoffed, moving up to stand beside Garrett at the railing. “Robbie has two left feet. He doesn’t dance if it’s not barefoot in the kitchen.”
“He’d do anything for you.”
“I can’t dance either.” Wyl passed him a glass filled with a white, milky liquid. “Drink up, it’s on your dad.”
Garrett stared into the glass. “What is this?”
“Not what I bet you’d like best right now,” Wyl replied with a crooked smile. He was an inch or so shorter than Garrett, with jet-black hair tied into a short ponytail and a sharp, attractive face. Wyl was a ship mechanic from a working-class background, and the only thing he and Garrett had in common on the surface was their interest in Robbie. “But it’s still creamy and delicious.”
Inside they had a similar filthy sense of humor, though.
“So thoughtful.” Garrett took one sip, then another more appreciatively. “Nice. He imported all sorts of good stuff for this.”
“Your dad wants to get off on the right foot.”
“The politically correct and very pricey foot,” Garrett corrected. “No state funds used—the party’s coming from his personal accounts. And he might as well get us all drunk and happy tonight because tomorrow the work really gets going. Governing a recently divided, even-more recently united planet with no profitable infrastructure in place apart from smuggling and a thousand different parasites waiting to descend and sink their claws into the construction process is no one’s idea of a good time.”
“Your dad isn’t the type to let himself get pushed into anything. He’ll do fine.”
Garrett shrugged. “I know. He’s got a good staff, he’s got Claudia. You and Robbie and Jane. He can handle anything that comes up.”
“He’s got you too.” Wyl grinned at him. “You might be mostly eye candy, but you’ve got better people skills than most diplomats. Plus, you’re a trained terraformer.”
If only. “There isn’t much call for terraforming here; the big companies have given Paradise up as a lost cause. Apart from the greenhouses needed for food security, there won’t be much to design.”
“Well, there must be something for a biochemical climawhatthefuckever to do here. People if nothing else.”
Garrett had to force a smile, which was another weird thing. He usually reveled in his sexual freedom, but he hadn’t slept with anyone for nearly two months now, and he wasn’t really interested in starting anything up with anyone. “Yes, I suppose I can always fall back on personal entertainment.”
Wyl frowned. “When’s the last time you went on a date, anyway? A real date, not a booty call?”
Garrett thought about it for a second. “I think it was sometime around that semi-suicidal mission of Robbie’s. He’s really healed up fine, hasn’t he? I never know if he’s telling the truth about personal injury, and despite what people th
“He’s fine now, the new leg works great, but Gare—that was six months ago.” Wyl clearly was not willing to be distracted. “You went out almost every night the first year I was here. You had boyfriends, boy toys … what’s up?”
“Nothing.” Which was technically true; his social calendar was dead except for big, unavoidable group events like this.
“Your heart rate says you’re lying.”
“Oh, fuck you and your super senses,” Garrett groused.
“Gare …”
“Wyl, if I knew what to tell you, I would,” he said. That was true enough too. Garrett believed in being honest, especially with people he cared about. The problem was that he didn’t know what was going on with him, and until he did, he could hardly articulate it to someone else.
“Will you tell me once you do know? Or Robbie, or your dad, or someone?”
Garrett smiled more naturally now. It was nice to have someone worry about him. “Of course.”
“Good.” Wyl pointed at the drink. “Finish it before it gets warm, otherwise the milk curdles.”
“Thanks, that’s incentive.” Garrett spun the glass in his fingertips, then put it down on the railing. “I’ll get a fresh one inside. I need to go back in anyway.”
“Nah, stay,” Wyl whined. “The music sucks.”
Garrett rolled his eyes. “It’s a waltz. What’s not to like about a waltz?”
“Apart from the fact that listening to it makes me want to fall asleep?”
“Sounds like a fascinating conversation,” a new voice commented from the door. They both turned to look at Robbie, who came over and slipped an arm around Wyl’s waist. Garrett barely even felt a pang anymore when that happened, for which he was pretty proud of himself. Robbie Sinclair was a modern-day white knight: tall, good-looking, the kind of guy that made going gray at the temples look sexy instead of distinguished. Garrett had long ago resigned himself to the fact that Robbie was a thing of his past, at least carnally, but that didn’t mean he had to keep his hands completely to himself.
“It was,” he said breezily, twining one of his arms with Robbie’s free one. “We were discussing who was going to get to dance with you next, and since Wyl is fighting off a bout of narcolepsy, it looks like I win.”
“I don’t dance,” Robbie said instantly, his blue eyes going a little desperate at the idea of it.
“Perfect time to learn,” Garrett coaxed, putting his cute face on. “Waltzes are easy.”
“You think global climate modeling is easy too.”
“You have the hand-eye coordination to be a sharpshooter in the Allied Marines, and yet you don’t have the foot-eye coordination to learn to waltz?” Garrett was tempted to keep up the banter—it was kind of standard operating procedure for the three of them—but he just didn’t have the energy. “Whatever. Stay out, enjoy the night air. It’s the coolest it gets on this damn planet anyway.”
He turned and walked back inside, leaving his warm drink behind. He thought he heard Wyl mutter something to Robbie, but it was lost in the sudden flood of sound as the door slid open for him.
Garrett squared his shoulders, dredged another smile up from somewhere, and proceeded to work the room.
Chapter two
The musicians playing the waltz were dressed in shimmering blue and black, their instruments perfect replicas of the archaic wood and metal that was the standard for Old Earth. Garrett enjoyed the sound of the instruments, the richness that their close, physical reality lent to the performance. He let that enjoyment have free rein in his mind and drive his social ability for the evening. If it gave his comments a more detached air than his usual witty lasciviousness, most people were too drunk or distracted to notice.
There was no shortage of individuals who did know how to waltz and no shortage of dance partners either. Garrett had his pick among the glittering constellation of guests, and he passed from one pair of arms to the next, always smiling, charming, and attentive. He chatted up the gossips, conversed with the philosophers, and listened to the folks who needed an outlet. He made people feel special, noticed, at ease. Garrett wielded his attractiveness like the weapon it was designed to be, toeing the line between uncomfortably beautiful and approachably handsome. He avoided Wyl and Robbie when they came back into the ballroom, though, and steered clear of his father and Claudia as well. He didn’t feel like having any more introspection pushed on him that evening.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t anticipate everyone.
“Senator Dowd,” he greeted one of his father’s former contemporaries from the Central System, “it’s lovely to see you. You’ve come a long way.” He took the small, rounded woman’s hand in his own and inclined his head briefly, a familiar salutation between natives on her home planet of Olympus.
“How could I pass up the opportunity to break my journey in your family’s excellent company?” the senator replied, a small smile on her face as she tilted her head in the traditional response.
“So you didn’t come just for me?” Garrett pressed one hand to his chest. “I’m crushed.”
“You’ll weather the disappointment somehow,” she said, tightening her grip a little before releasing him. “I was more than happy to accept the invitation. I’ve got a lot to do before I get to Pandora, and this is a welcome moment of respite.”
“Why would you go to Pandora?” It was a fair question. Why would anyone go to Pandora? It was on the outskirts of the Fringe, the edge of the inhabited planets nearest to the Central System. Most of those planets were “inhabited” only because the inner colonies had vastly overrated the speed at which they would need more space and so had staked their claims centuries earlier. Huge amounts of money and resources were spent preparing planets for colonization that likely wouldn’t be needed for a dozen generations, even with the Regen therapy that extended people’s natural lifespans by over a hundred years.
Olympus had begun transforming the harsh, uninhabitable landscape of its extension colony Pandora three centuries before. Garrett had no idea how far along it was, but he did know that their population wasn’t large enough to merit shipping people out there yet.
“I’m conducting a review for Olympus’ ruling council,” Senator Dowd replied. “Pandora is finally approaching livable conditions, and while we don’t have any immediate need to colonize, there are plenty of special-interest groups who’re looking for a place to put down roots.”
Garrett raised an eyebrow. “You’re considering selling space to zealots?” “Special interest” was almost always synonymous with “the fundamentally faithful” these days, and they tended not to make the best tenants. These were people who lived by faith, any faith, and let that faith dictate their actions to the impediment of living a regular life in regular society. Although to Garrett’s mind, “regular” was a loaded term.
But what the hell; he wasn’t a sociologist or a psychologist, he didn’t really care about the nomenclature. Garrett dismissed the thought and turned his attention back to the senator as she answered.
“Not all special-interest groups are zealots,” she said mildly, her expression imperturbable. “Living in the Fringe is comparatively hard work, but there are advantages. Independence with the assurance of home-colony support as long as connections are properly maintained, fewer restrictions on social or medical issues. As long as they’re not reverting to savagery or illegal activities, the benefits outweigh the difficulties, at least at first glance. That’s one of the reasons I’m going, to assess whether or not we can safely and stably initiate a real, productive colony on Pandora. If we can, the first expedition will be largely scientific, getting the facilities in place for larger groups. We’ll need a good climatologist,” she added, that same little smile glinting on and off in her face.
Garrett arched an eyebrow in genuine disdain. “Jezria, do I look like the kind of person who would enjoy a stint on the stormy ball of ice water that is Pandora? Who named it, by the way? It was either someone with a feeble sense of humor or a vicious sense of irony.”
“That would be my great-grandfather,” she replied.
“I see. I’m going with irony, then.”
