Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Garin surveyed the supplies arrayed across his bedspread. Déjà vu nibbled on the edge of his mind, the strangest sense of otherness and familiarity.

He'd felt it first on his call with Beaty an hour ago. It had been years since he'd told her he'd be unreachable for the next month and given her a number to call instead. Of course, she'd already had Dom's number, but he'd still given it to her again to be safe. And unlike when he'd been running covert ops with his Vanguard unit for the Human military, this time he'd told her exactly where he'd be, what he'd be doing, and why.

Now, packing a bag for a trip on foot into the dangerous wilderness, the feeling struck again. Water tablets. Tarps. Ropes. Hell, a sleeping bag. Since becoming employed by the Turners, he'd stayed nowhere without silk bedsheets, the present research station excluded.

He hated leaving Dom while the young man had the biggest target yet painted on his back and he didn't like being out of contact with his family while his mother transitioned to yet another medication, but if he was honest with himself, touching the warm, rough flannel of the sleeping bag's interior grounded him.

Footsteps out in the hall were followed by a subdued knock and Dom's voice. "Hey Garin, you got a minute?"

Garin quirked a smile. The Turner boys. They'd toss their chins and huff and puff and snap orders one minute, but creep back with their heads down and their tails wagging, hoping you weren't still mad at them the next. Dominic more than Oliver. He'd always been the more sensitive one.

"I have five minutes." Garin opened the door and stepped back for Dom to enter. "By then, the sun will be up enough to give us some light, and Sazahk and I will be on our way."

"Right. I, uh—" Dom turned his tablet around in his hands, then held it out to Garin. "—Pulled some strings, called in some favors, and got you a parting gift."

Garin accepted the tablet with a raised eyebrow and watched Dom shuffle his feet before looking down at it. His second eyebrow rose to join the first. "Topographical maps."

"Sort of." Dom nodded his head vigorously, his excitement overtaking his reticence, and pointed at a few places on the screen. "Except these are mostly mapping a subterranean cave system. Look at this. All through here. Right next to where Squad M discovered that Insect outpost."

Garin tried to follow the flashing images as Dom swept his fingers across the screen, but they moved too fast, and he shook his head and leaned back. "This is the Dead Zone? How did anyone get this? No one's been in the Dead Zone since the Qesh killed it themselves."

"Physically been? No." Dom took the tablet back. "Secretly spied on? Plenty. With some very impressive ground penetrating sensors, too. These were taken from orbit. Before the Insect invasion, though, so we know the caves aren't from them."

"Ah." Garin returned to his bed and began packing away his supplies, ticking each item off his list as he went. "They're from the Human military, aren't they?"

"They are." Dom tapped his screen a few times, sending the maps to Garin's tablet, which buzzed in his pocket. "So maybe don't mention how you got them to Sazahk."

"He with the Qesh or the Klah'Eel?" Garin knew next to nothing about the qeshian scientist he'd been assigned to escort. He'd have liked to have done more digging in the half-day since he'd saved the man from being run over by a cruiser, but between preparing for the trip and getting a good night's sleep, there hadn't been time. All he knew was that the man was clearly qesh, but also clearly affiliated with a Klah'Eel squad.

"He's with himself, from what I can tell." Dom leaned back against the small desk. "He comes from a politically powerful Qeshian family. He's the younger brother of Emissary Serihk, if you recall the name."

"Yeah, I remember him." Garin straightened in surprise and glanced at Dom to check he'd heard right. "The Resistance targeted his ship on Tava before they started the war. Almost killed Oliver in the explosion. That man is Sazahk's brother?" The silly scientist with the colorful test tubes was the brother of the face of Qeshian diplomacy?

"Yup." Dom nodded, mirroring Garin's bewilderment. "But something happened and somehow he ended up embedded in the Carta Cartel."

The silly scientist was a criminal, too? Garin shook his head and returned to his packing. None of that tracked. "Was he exiled?"

"Apparently." Dom shrugged. "I don't know if the exile was personally or legally imposed, though. Either way, the Qesh wanted him back as soon as the Insects became a threat."

Garin stowed his medkit in the easiest to reach pocket and packed a few extra knives and lighters to be on the safe side. "And what's he to you?"

Dom hesitated. "To me?"

"Yes, to you." Garin checked off the last item on his list, the portable atmospheric water generator, hauled the bag's strap up over his shoulder, and fixed Dom with a stern look. "Why are we here? Why are you sending me off with him?"

Dom scowled and crossed his arms. "I told you. He's?—"

"The sector's best shot at cleaning up the Dead Zone to give the Insects a home so they don't destroy us all," Garin finished for him. "Yes, you mentioned that yesterday, but there's something else."

Garin had spent the better part of an hour the day before trying to convince Dom this was a terrible idea. That he had his fully packed bag slung over his shoulder showed how well that had gone for him.

Garin shifted his weight onto his left foot as he waited for Dom to open up. "You didn't have to come all the way here yourself, just to pass me off as a resource for our sectors' last great hope."

"Fine." Dom heaved a sigh and looked away. "He's my friend."

Garin tried and failed miserably, judging by Dom's wince, to hide his surprise. "Your friend?"

Dominic Turner didn't have friends. Garin spent his every waking hour glued to the younger man's side, and he knew the younger man did not possess a single friend. Some of that was self-inflicted. After all, Dom had created horrible weapons, dismissed others, was cruel to his younger brother, and acted with ruthless and cutthroat ambition in a desperate, failing attempt to win his father's affection.

So, some of Dom's isolation was blatantly unfair, petty, upper-crust snobbery and politicking. But most of it was a cruelly cyclical self-fulfilling prophecy.

"Yes, my friend." Dom's shoulders crept up. "We worked well together on the turbines for Tava and now…I don't know…" He shrugged and his shoulders brushed his ears. "We're friends. And I think I'm friends with Bar'in, and Tar, and Fal'ran, and a little bit Patrick, too."

"Oh." Garin blinked. He had noticed Dom spending more time communicating with the Klah'Eel military, and that he seemed to have a scientific partner he actually liked, but Dom had been cagey and possessive of his private time with them. Now Garin understood. Dom hadn't wanted to risk anyone else witnessing his attempts at friendship, in case they blew up in his face. "I'm happy for you."

Dom blushed and stared at the ground between his feet. "Thanks." He scuffed his foot on the floor and waved a hand at the door. "So, you know, don't let Sazahk die out there and make sure all his wildest scientific dreams come true."

Despite his engineer parents and brothers, Garin had no idea what wild scientific dreams might be. He didn't understand what occupied Dom for hours in his lab, or what exactly had driven Sazahk to the edge of tears when all his samples had ended up on Garin. But he understood keeping someone alive. "And you make sure you don't die, either."

Dom rolled his eyes. "I'm in the middle of a Klah'Eel military compound. I'll be fine."

"Do not underestimate the danger you're in, Dominic." Garin stepped forward to heighten the effect of his scowl. "There are a lot of people out there that want your head on a spike."

"Can you blame them?" Dom's upper lip curled and Garin's heart twisted.

"That's not the point." Garin didn't disagree with people's right to abhor the man in front of him. But he had seen more of Dominic Turner than anyone, and what he saw more than anything was a young man who'd never been loved in his life and who strove to fulfill the role he'd been groomed for by a father who treated him as nothing more than another corporate asset.

"Can we just go, please?" Dom straightened from his lean and gestured at the door. "You have other things to worry about now."

As much as Garin still wanted to shake some sense of self-preservation and self-worth into Dom before he left, he conceded and lead the way out into the hall without complaint. Dom was right about one thing; Garin did have other things to worry about now. It was time for him to shift his focus. His life and the life of another rested on his ability to observe his surroundings, decide fast, and act faster. He couldn't afford to be distracted.

"Beaty's a smart woman, you know."

Garin stopped dead. So much for not being distracted. "What?"

Dom stopped too and turned to face Garin when Garin rounded on him. "Beaty can handle taking care of the family while you're gone."

Garin narrowed his eyes. Dom barely knew Beaty. "What makes you say that?"

Dom lifted his chin in that classic Turner show of dominance. "Because she told me."

"You talked to her?" Garin had spoken to Beaty that morning, and she hadn't mentioned anything about talking to Dom.

"Of course I did." Dom turned on his heel and continued toward the compound's gates. "I wouldn't send you away without checking that your family could handle your absence. I know your mother's not well."

"And how do you know that?" Garin pinched the bridge of his nose as he followed Dom out of the building and along a dusty path. He didn't know what shocked and upset him more: that Beaty hadn't told him Dom had contacted her, that she'd told Dom she could manage without him, or that Dom had believed her.

Dom threw him a deadpan look. "You know all Turner Corporation employee communications are monitored, right?"

"I know that." Garin scowled. "I just didn't know you actually paid attention to the finer details of my family drama."

Dom looked forward again, but Garin saw the tops of his ears flush. "Well, I do. I don't read everything. I understand the concept of privacy. But I do pay attention."

Garin was still mad at him, but he had the sudden desire to fling an arm around Dom's shoulders and scrub the top of his head. Garin had taken to being a bodyguard like a duck to water, and it didn't take a psychoanalyst to figure out why. He'd played the role of protective eldest brother his whole life. Becoming a bodyguard merely meant slotting Oliver and Dominic into the little brother position.

Oliver had never believed it. He'd never trusted Garin all the way up to when he'd given Garin the slip and betrayed his family. Dom didn't believe Garin really cared for him, either. The difference was that Dom clearly wanted to.

Garin growled a sigh, but restrained his accusing tone when he caught up to Dom's long stride. "If you've been paying attention to my family, then you know Beaty's already got a lot on her plate. And the boys are at that age where they can either end up as brilliant young men that walk the straight and narrow or go completely off the deep-end without strong guidance."

"I don't—" Dom eyed Garin, then snapped his mouth shut.

Garin raised an eyebrow. "Don't what?"

Dom seemed to weigh his words, then took the gamble. "I don't know that that's all true. Beaty's busy, sure, but she's not drowning. And the boys already seem like hard-working, law-abiding young men."

Garin started shaking his head before Dom finished his sentence. "That doesn't mean they don't still need me."

Dom's eye glinted with skepticism, but then they reached the gate and Garin's focus shifted entirely to the qesh standing with his team.

Damn, he was still pretty.

Knowing what a spitting rage demon he turned into when saved from oncoming traffic didn't diminish Garin's appreciation for his narrow hips and long, braided, pale hair. He'd redone the braid, every hair that had come loose in their scuffle the day before folded back into place. Maybe Garin would offer to help him redo it out in the field. He'd braided Beaty's hair enough growing up to learn the technique, and it might help put their unpleasant encounter behind them.

Then again, maybe Sazahk was already over the way they'd met. He didn't look upset about their situation. He bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, and his long fingers played with the strap of his stuffed pack. He looked excited. Like a child off to camp.

At a gesture from the smallest klah'eel, Sazahk turned toward Garin and Dom's approach. Garin smiled his best friendly smile, but Sazahk returned a pursed lip pout and a tendril of purple crawled over his upper lip. Every qesh's colors were unique. Knowing that one qesh turned purple when they were happy didn't tell someone what purple meant on another qesh. But Garin didn't need any special insights to know Sazahk's purple wasn't good.

"You're heavily armed for an excursion into a land famously devoid of life." Sazahk met them, tablet in hand, and eyed the pistol and knife hanging at Garin's hips. "I know you've been chosen for this position because of your martial skill rather than your scientific acumen, but I hope you know steel won't save your cells from the lingering effects of the ancient qeshs' weapons."

Garin's jaw ticked. "Actually, my knowledge of wilderness environments and the biological limits of human and qeshian bodies is one reason I was chosen for this position." He might not have this scientist's brilliance, but he'd been educated on a full scholarship at the Human's finest military academy. "And I thought we were going looking for life."

"We are going looking for the possibility of life." Sazahk drummed his long fingers along the edge of his tablet, the purple curling up the straight line of his nose. "Whether or not the essential building blocks remain in the soil and landscape. Whether or not the poison and defoliants used on the area continue to pose a problem. Finding vertebrate life of the kind that can be stopped by a gun and additionally proves to be a hostile threat is a remote possibility."

Garin tapped the butt of his gun. "And in the case of that possibility, we'll be prepared."

Sazahk's dark eyes glinted as the purple skirted around them. After a beat, he whirled away to face Dom and Garin fought back a smirk.

Point to him.

Sazahk shoved his tablet into Dom's hands. "I compiled the data from one last research experiment on Tar's anosmia. Based on these findings, I'd say your suggestion from two days ago is our best shot at restoring maximum olfactory sensitivity."

Safely ignored, Garin took the opportunity to sweep his eyes from Sazahk's head to his feet. Neatly braided hair, but a wrinkled shirt and crumpled pants. There was no one to impress where they were going, but Garin had never started a mission looking disheveled. Still, he had to give the man points for being the sort of scientist that didn't mind getting his hands dirty. Or his boots. Or his pants. Or his shirt.

Sazahk took the tablet back after Dom had glanced at it and swiped the files to Dom's tablet. "I wish I could be present for the attempt, but I'm glad you'll be here to do it in my place. I would greatly appreciate if you'd record everything from pre- to post-op."

"If we go ahead with the procedure while you're gone, I'll make sure we capture it from every angle," Dom promised with a hand over his heart.

"Thank you." Sazahk's high cheekbones bloomed with a yellow as bright as the daffodils at the Turner's Earth estate. Then he turned on his heel and marched back to the gate without another look in Garin's direction.

Garin rubbed the spot between his eyebrows. Safe to say the qesh was not over their meeting. Great.

He caught Smith's eye and Smith gave him a sympathetic grimace that worsened Garin's oncoming migraine. It was that bad, huh?

Garin straightened up and recovered his friendly smile. He and Sazahk would be glued to each other's sweaty sides as they ripened in the sun for the next month. It was time to be friends.

He joined the group at the gate and offered his hand to Sazahk. "Hey, we never got a chance to exchange real introductions. I'm Garin and I'm looking forward to working with you."

Sazahk eyed Garin's hand, then flicked that disinterested gaze up to Garin's face. "No, you're not. Bar'in heard you arguing with Dom about your unwillingness to be here."

Garin clenched his jaw and stuck his hand back in his pocket while he waited for Sazahk to finish.

"And while more evidence to the contrary isn't necessary, the fact that you don't want to be here is also evident in the deception Dom had to practice in order to get you here." Sazahk tilted his chin. "You were only told about the mission yesterday."

"I didn't say I approved of this mission or wanted to be here. I said I was looking forward to working with you," Garin gritted out as soon as he got the opportunity.

Sazahk raised an eyebrow. "You're not. But your recitation of the correct polite phrase is noted."

Well, he fucking wasn't looking forward to working with the man now! Garin inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. "Thank you."

He tried not to be extra offended by having his handshake rejected. Shaking hands was a Human gesture. He shouldn't have led with that.

Before Garin thought of a way to continue the conversation, Fal'ran, who Garin had met briefly and rather liked, grabbed Sazahk and pulled him into a hug. "Be safe out there, Sazahk."

The rest of Squad M crowded around their scientist, and Garin turned awkwardly away from the spectacle of their affectionate goodbyes. None of them got any cutting remarks, but maybe Sazahk had already doled those out when he'd first met them.

Maybe Sazahk was always prickly and cold with new people.

Or maybe Sazahk just didn't like him.

"Well, goodbye." Dom shifted his weight from his left to his right side and offered Garin a weak smile. "And good luck out there."

Garin considered for a moment, decided it would do Dom more good than harm, and pulled the younger man into an abrupt embrace.

Dom tensed so hard Garin expected his spine to crack. Garin would bet his annual salary Alistair Turner had never hugged his boys. And since their mother had left when they were toddlers and never bothered to see them since, Garin would bet his Turner Corporation stock options she hadn't been much of a hugger either.

No wonder Dom and Oliver were so fucked up.

Garin tightened his grip. "Goodbye, Dom. For the love of god, be safe."

Finally, Dom softened and returned the hug with surprisingly enthusiastic strength. "I will. And I'll check in with Beaty every day."

Garin pulled back and clapped Dom on the shoulder. "Thank you."

"Garin, you got a minute?" Patrick Smith touched Garin's elbow, and at Garin's nod lead him slightly away from the group. "I really appreciate you doing this."

"I understand it's an important mission." Garin slipped comfortably into a frank seriousness in the presence of another military man.

"It is." Smith nodded. "I know that doesn't need to be said again. But it's personally important to Sazahk as well, and that means something to me."

Garin glanced at the qesh. He was speaking to Dom now that Garin was out of his way, light green and yellow spiraling up his long neck. "What's the significance for him?"

"I'm not sure." Smith followed Garin's gaze and watched Sazahk with a frown. "But it's something. There are demons under that strange exterior." Smith put a hand on Garin's back and shifted their bodies to shield their conversation. "And to be honest, I'm not exactly sure how they'll come out during this mission."

Garin dropped his voice. "You think he'll try something out there?"

"I wouldn't count it out."

Well, didn't this mission keep getting better and better? "What kind of something? Sabotage? Espionage?"

"No, I don't think so." Smith shook his head. "He's not one of the bad guys."

"Whoever those are." Every major power Garin had ever seen had spent some time in the bad guy role.

Smith tipped his chin to concede Garin's point and moved on. "I'm more worried about recklessness. Self-preservation isn't Sazahk's greatest priority."

Garin snorted. "Yeah, I'd guessed." Still, he felt compelled to give the qesh his due. "If it was, he wouldn't be volunteering for this at all. Much less champing at the bit."

"And that's why we're lucky to have him." Smith grinned crookedly. "He?—"

"Hey! Tight ass!"

Garin looked back in confusion and stared at the small klah'eel, Bar'in, as he waved. It took Garin a full two seconds to realize the man was addressing him. Tight ass? The hell had Garin done to deserve that?

But Garin didn't have time to waste fighting the nickname. Bar'in jerked a thumb toward the gate. "You'd better catch up!"

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Garin muttered under his breath, then hauled ass out of the compound and after the disappearing figure of Sazahk striding out toward the horizon with a pep in his step and not a glance back.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

In the past day, Garin had thought, muttered, and growled those four words to himself more times than he ever had in his life. But he'd never thought them with such bone-deep horror.

Chaos.

Pure, unordered, entropy-death-of-the-universe, chaos.

The back of Garin's neck broke out into a cold sweat at the sight of it.

Sazahk plucked some shiny scientific tool from the orderless mass and caught Garin staring at him. "What? Do you have an opinion you'd like to share about my instruments?"

"Nope." Garin yanked his eyes back to picking out the rocks in the patch of dirt he'd decided would serve as his sleeping mat. It had been a long day. A very long day. Garin just wanted to set up camp and avoid an altercation.

"Are you sure? Because you're perspiring, your jaw is ticking, and your face is pale."

"Of course I'm perspiring. It's a thousand degrees out here." And Garin's face certainly wasn't pale anymore. It blushed under Sazahk's study.

"No, it's not." Sazahk set up a stand of glass test tubes and a microscope. "The Dead Zone is a desert climate. The sun will be down in an hour and the temperature will drop. It's already started."

Garin didn't argue. It was indeed getting chilly. He tossed the last rock over his shoulder and laid out his sleeping bag, then built up a pile of kindling between his sleeping space and Sazahk's…anarchy.

As soon as they'd chosen a spot for camp—one of the few things Sazahk hadn't argued with him about—Sazahk had spilled his disorder all over the ground. Garin had noticed as they traveled that Sazahk's bag was strangely misshapen: a little too large on the left, a little lumpier on the bottom, but Garin had written it off as not everyone having his level of training in mission preparation and packing.

But then Sazahk had dumped his pack, and the unbridled mess had poured out. That was not a lack of packing experience. That was a lack of any packing whatsoever. That was a knapsack of stuff without rhyme or reason. That was two microscopes that looked exactly the same, a high-quality Klah'Eel multi-tool and a shitty penknife, a single ration bar, and too many pairs of pants with too few pairs of underwear.

And none of Garin's business.

Garin fixed his attention on starting a fire before the sun dropped below the horizon and the real cold set in.

Aside from spats with Sazahk about basic safety precautions, the day had gone well. They'd covered a lot of ground, no one had been injured, Sazahk had collected a dozen samples that he laid out now beside his microscope, and Garin's legs had that pleasant, slight ache after a long day's trek that he hadn't realized he'd missed.

Garin flicked his lighter, and the kindling caught so quickly it could have been doused in gasoline.

The Dead Zone was a harsh, barren landscape. Nothing but yellow rocks, yellow dirt, and the scrubby remnants of long dead plants. It was mostly flat, with a few dried riverbeds and occasional outcrops. Garin had seen what looked like a ruined city skyline in the distance, but it had shimmered away in the heat radiation as he watched. It was desolate and silent, but…not wholly unpleasant. Its harshness had a beauty, and the quiet soothed Garin's soul. It had been a long time since he'd heard quiet.

"Give me a piece of your kindling." Sazahk held out an open palm, pulling Garin from his thoughts.

"What?" Garin frowned down at Sazahk's hand, and instinctively tugged his twigs closer. "Why?"

Sazahk tsked and beckoned with his fingers. "Because if you're going to burn it and send its entire chemical composition up into the air for us to inhale, I'd like to take a closer look."

That was an excellent point, even if Garin couldn't bring himself to admit it, so he passed Sazahk the piece of wood he'd been about to add. Sazahk broke it into little pieces and dropped each piece into its own test tube.

The scientist had kept up with their pace far better than Garin would have guessed, looking at his slender frame. In fact, he had set the pace. He'd pushed onward as though powered by an engine, never slowing, never panting, flitting from rock to rock, patch of dirt to patch of dirt, light green blooming across his cheeks.

When he saw something that interested him—which was every five steps—he became the only green thing in the barren wasteland. The most alive thing for miles around.

Sazahk dipped the tip of a sensor pen into each test tube and flicked his eyes over the readout that scrolled across his tablet. He shook his head and murmured with rueful admiration, "My ancestors really did know their chemical engineering."

Despite Sazahk's comment having been obviously more to himself than to Garin, Garin shifted closer. "What did you find?"

"The remnants of the chemical defoliant used in this area a millennium ago," Sazahk sighed, and pink curled up his temples. It was a pretty color, but it looked all wrong on him. Green suited him better. "It still lingers in organic matter. I think it's probably bioaccumulated. I'm finding it in the soil as well, but it's much more highly concentrated even in this dead stick."

Garin shot a look at the beginnings of his cheery little fire. "Should I not be doing this, then?"

"No, the fire's fine." Sazahk emptied his test tubes of the bits of wood. "The problematic compounds should stay in the ash, so as long as you're not planning on eating them, they shouldn't pose a threat. The dirt we're sleeping in is a much more significant vector of exposure."

"Oh good," Garin deadpanned.

"Give me a blood sample, as well." Sazahk shoved a palm-sized device into Garin's hand, then tapped a finger on Garin's forearm. "A simple prick there will do."

"Are you doing one, too?" Garin obediently pressed the device against his arm, pressed the button to jab in the needle, and twitched as it sucked up a drop of blood from his skin.

"Of course." Sazahk took the device back, switched out the needle and test strip, and rolled up his own sleeve. "Dominic designed these strips to test for every chemical and compound possibly responsible for or caused by the sort of cellular degeneration symptoms I've so far identified as being associated with long-term exposure to the Dead Zone."

"And what symptoms are those, exactly?" Garin's research had been concerningly vague about the threats they faced.

"Nausea, vomiting, head and muscle aches, skin lesions, infertility, cancer, and neurological deficiencies." Sazahk pricked himself without so much as a wince. "We'll conduct these tests every night and evaluate which compounds, if any, accumulate in our bloodstream and how quickly."

"Great." Garin didn't mind the blood tests, but he didn't like not knowing what they were exposing themselves to and he definitely didn't like that long list of symptoms or what had been on it.

Unfortunately, there was nothing doing for that, so he busied himself building up the fire into a steady blaze to keep them warm through the night, while Sazahk conducted preliminary studies on the samples he'd collected and filed away their test strips.

Garin tried to keep his eyes on his own work, both because looking at Sazahk's messiness made him antsy and because he didn't want to trigger another spat by making eye contact. But Sazahk muttered as he worked, as long-winded with himself as he was with other people. The rhythm of his voice, the hums, and the quiet ah-has, and the little gasps of surprised delight drew Garin's gaze.

It was hard not to be sucked into the gravity well of Sazahk's intensity. His body and mind bent toward his study. His eyes sparkled. His long fingers flickered over the screen of his tablet, flicked switches, turned dials on his instruments, and tapped thoughtfully on his plump lower lip. Garin traced those lips with his gaze as he poked the fire and flames danced higher.

The fire light flickered across the green swirling over Sazahk's high cheekbones, giving him the look of dappled sunlight through leaves.

Oh god.

Garin shook his head to knock the poetry out of it.

It was like he'd never seen a pretty man before. He left the fire, plopped down on his sleeping bag, and pulled his pack to him. He'd seen plenty of pretty men. Fucked plenty of pretty men, too. That was what being passably handsome, decently articulate, and more than decently employed got you.

Granted, he'd never fucked a man like Sazahk, but still.

Garin sorted through his—very neat and well-organized, unlike someone's—pack to retrieve two ration bars. Garin didn't even want to fuck Sazahk. Sazahk would probably question the motives of his every touch, refuse to let Garin make him feel good, then lecture him on the proper way to give head based on the nerve structure of human male sexual organs.

Garin's cock twitched, and he stared down at it. Sazahk lecturing him on fellatio should not have been an arousing thought.

Garin should have gotten laid before this mission.

Once his wayward anatomy proved it wouldn't be a problem, Garin set aside his pack and tossed a ration bar next to microscope-number-two, which sat on its side next to Sazahk's crossed legs. "Eat."

Sazahk glanced at it, and as Garin had half-expected, didn't reach for it. Instead, he peered into microscope-number-one and pointed left. "We're going in that direction tomorrow."

"Mmm, hold on." Garin took a bite of his own ration bar as he swiped one-handed through the maps from Dom. He hadn't had time to go over them in detail. He had planned to do that before turning in for the night, but if he remembered correctly… "Yeah, no. I'd rather we didn't."

"You'd rather we weren't out here at all." Sazahk didn't look up from his study, but a spot of purple appeared under his jaw.

"And I'd really rather we don't get steamed or boiled alive." Garin rotated the maps a few times to ensure he was reading them right and, yeah, that was a bad direction.

That got Sazahk's attention. He sat up from his microscope and swiveled to face Garin fully, all traces of purple replaced by shimmering light green. "That was rather specific. Why would you say that? What do you know?"

How to read a map? Garin frowned, opened his mouth, and was about to turn his tablet around to show Sazahk the images, when he understood. Dom hadn't given Sazahk the maps. He'd only given them to Garin. He'd given Garin a leg up on the pushy whirlwind that was Sazahk to give Garin a chance to chart them a properly safe course through this madness. Garin snapped his mouth shut again, but the damage had been done.

"Is that a map?" Sazahk scrambled over and crouched in front of Garin. "Let me see."

Garin wasn't about to hide information from his partner, so he sighed and handed over the tablet. "It's not a full map. It's just bits and pieces. And I don't know how experimental the surveying technology still is."

Sazahk's dark eyes snapped back and forth across the screen, but his face fell. "I'm not familiar with this cartographic notation."

"You wouldn't be. It's standard in the Human military though." Garin accepted back his tablet. It made sense Sazahk couldn't read it, but Garin still had to hide his surprise. He'd expected Sazahk to be able to read it just because. Because he'd seen it once and its design was obvious or something like that.

"What's over there that's going to steam us alive?" Sazahk crossed his legs and sat in front of Garin.

"Significant geothermal activity." Garin reached into his bag for another ration bar and passed it to Sazahk. "Steam vents, geysers, boiling hot springs, places where the ground gives out from under you and sends you into the fiery depths, things like that. In other words, incredibly treacherous terrain."

"Microbial mats." Sazahk's eyes widened with excitement.

Garin inwardly swore. "Not necessarily."

Sazahk leaned forward, clutching his ration bar tightly as though to discharge his excited energy. "But possibly. Probably even. Think of what we could learn from that. If there are microbial mats, then we can deduce what sort of biological processes contribute to survival in the Dead Zone. If there aren't any, then it's convincing, and frankly devastating, evidence that even the hardiest life forms are doomed here in the long term."

"What was beyond the geothermal activity, though?" Garin panned his map looking for anything that might be more compelling than a land of fire and brimstone. "What were you originally aiming for?"

"The site of an ancient jungle and the location where my team encountered the Insects that took Patrick prisoner." Sazahk sat back and unwrapped the ration bar. "It would have been a prime target for the ecological warfare that devastated this region, but I discovered moss not far from there. Given its previous biodiversity, and the interesting ways Insects may affect their environments, I'm hopeful some lifeforms were able to adapt and now possibly thrive."

Garin finished his bar and brushed his hands off on his pants so he could study his maps more closely. "Is it this area?" Garin zoomed the picture out so Sazahk could see the perimeter of the Dead Zone on the screen and get his bearings. Then he circled his fingertip around the extensive cave system a few days' walk from where they camped.

Sazahk took a bite of his bar as he looked at the screen. "Yes, that's it exactly. It looks very busy on your map. What's there?"

"Caves." Garin set the map back in his lap. The geothermal hotspot lay directly between their current location and the caves, so closely that the edge of the cave system overlapped with it. Garin wanted to give all that a wide berth considering the room for error when assessing terrain safety from a spy ship.

"Natural?" Sazahk tilted his head as he nibbled on the bar and his long braid slid over his shoulder.

"As far as I can tell." Garin traced a route that swooped around the dangerous area and approached the cave system from the north. "There's no notation for suspected bunkers or other underground facilities."

Sazahk gasped, and his eyes flashed with delight. "There could be a whole subterranean ecosystem down there. A speleological network would have been sheltered from the worst of the attacks and be shielded from the sun." He leaned into Garin's space. "We have to go there."

"We will." Garin stifled his chuckle at Sazahk's enthusiasm. "We'll head north tomorrow morning and loop around…" But Sazahk was already shaking his head. "What?"

"The geothermal hot springs are on the way to the ancient jungle." Sazahk crumpled his empty wrapper and stuffed it in his pocket. "And they have the potential to provide just as much insight into the nature of life in this area. I'm going that way."

Garin growled in the back of his throat as Sazahk stood and returned to his picnic blanket of tools. "Sazahk, be reasonable?—"

It was the wrong thing to say.

Sazahk went rigid as blue and purple wrapped up his throat like a bruise.

Garin snapped his mouth shut.

Sazahk rounded on him with an icy glare. "I'm being perfectly reasonable." His hands clenched into fists before he hid them behind his back. "My explicit, stated goal is to discover how to support life in this region. There are two clear leads. The hot springs and the cave system. It is incredibly reasonable to visit them both."

Except if he died investigating the first, then he'd never reach the second, but Sazahk wouldn't stop talking long enough for Garin to make that argument.

"In fact, it would be unreasonable if not a complete dereliction of duty to abandon a lead out of an amorphous fear of dangerous terrain."

Actually, Garin's fear had a very clear form. It was shaped like a slippery ramp into boiling water.

"So, when I wake up tomorrow morning, I am going west." Sazahk sat down on his sleeping bag as a final punctuation. "And whether or not you join me isn't my concern."

Garin stared across the fire at Sazahk's stiff spine.

He was demanding Dom give him a raise after this.

What the hell did Sazahk have against a little caution? What was so infuriating about someone showing a little concern for bodily safety?

Finally, Garin released a breath. "And if I do come, I don't suppose you'll listen to me when I ask you to be careful around the steaming pits of corrosive death water?"

Sazahk twisted the fine focus dial on his microscope and answered without looking up. "No."

No. No, of course not.