When I try to talk to him he just says, "Can't you see I'm busy?"

I need to give myself some lockpick points. That's y game stule, and it's critical.

Now what? Is this a bug, or is there a quest I need to do?

iirc, you need to do some basic quests for Dawkins before he instructs you to seek out Gardok. Gardok should be able to train you at this point or shortly after.

In the meantime, I highly recommend marking any chests/safes you cannot yet access with the Chest icon on your map. It's very useful for reminders (and a good feature that Elex 1 lacked).

Cheers. Yes, in the end I wandered around doing quests and finally got to speak with him.

Thanks for that tip about the chests! I didn't know that, and there are several now that I've abandoned and can't find now.