The two of them started back, towards the river, and at first, Keera went along, her mind in too much turmoil to realise what was happening with her, but after a minute or two, her whirling mind slowed down enough for her to make sense of the situation. And the situation greatly confused her, Scarlet, the hateful pixie, was gently leading her along, speaking baby talk in a strangely calm voice. If Keera previously had suspected to have a nightmare, now she was doubting her sanity for only if she was having some sort of mental breakdown, her mind would have conjured up such a strange scene.

Ripping her hand away, she screeched in an angry tone, “What are you doing?!” causing Scarlet to look back at her, for a moment, there was a look of confusion in her mind, quickly replaced by an angry glare.

“I gave you my word, my promise, to teach you how to survive here. I don’t break my word and right now, you need to get yourself cleaned up. Your scent is rather distinctive and your legs will chafe if we don’t, either can be serious trouble.” Scarlet answered, her voice scolding and angry but collected.

Again, Keera’s mind had been in too much turmoil to realise what the strangely wet and warm feeling at her lower body was, but Scarlet bringing her attention to it caused realisation to bloom, alongside a fierce blush, strong enough to even show on her dark skin.

“After you have washed yourself, or do you even need help for that? Anyway, after you have washed yourself, we will head back to camp and start with your lessons. Maybe once your mind caught up with the situation you won’t be as useless.” Scarlet continued, more of her anger evident in her voice.

“Why? Why are you doing this?” Keera asked, confusion about the hateful pixie and her intentions making her abandon all pretenses and come straight out.

“For one thing, I gave you my word and I keep my word. And another, you are one of the few on this rock who I know don’t have a previous allegiance, something that might be important down the line.” Scarlet answered, a little more honest and straightforward than she would normally have done, but her nerves started to show.

“Allegiance? What do you mean?”

“We are in a prison, a prison of planetary size. The wardens are obviously those under command of the Doctor, but what other groups are out there? I don’t fancy getting made a whore anymore than you hopefully do so being subservient to anyone could lead to trouble. And that trouble could last for the rest of our lives, even if such trouble would likely shorten them considerably.”

“For the rest of our lives? We just need to fulfill our quota and at the end of our sentence, we can get out of here, right? What have you done that you got a life-sentence?!” Keera blurted, her voice getting hysterical and her mind conjuring more images of Scarlet, standing in the darkness with a bloody knife, raising it to her mouth and licking the blood off, before spreading it across her lips, like a macabre lipstick.

Scarlet noticed the agitation sweeping Keera and she started to laugh, despite herself.

“Yes, certainly, and magical unicorns from space will come striding down a rainbow to carry you back into the waiting arms of the Federation. Right. Pull the other one?” Scarlet asked after she managed to get herself mostly under control, only chuckling as she spoke. The mockery caused Keera to frown,wondering what Scarlet knew that she did not.

“Do you really think that the Federation will use a tremendous amount of resources to lift anyone back to space, just because they served their sentence? On a world where they need to use about the most primitive, chemical rockets to do so? I doubt it. No, it’s the carrot and the stick. Withholding food is the stick and our freedom the carrot. And those who act in their stead, the Doctor and his cronies, I’d bet they get something extra, or that they are those who commited bad enough crimes to warrant a life-sentence. Doesn't really matter anyway, unless we cross them. They couldn’t rule without upholding their own rules and without all the other psions, they couldn’t keep the quotas.” Scarlet explained, gambling that it would allow her to make Keera see reason and draw her into her own camp.

“How can you know that?!” Keera asked, her frown deepening as she considered the situation laid out by Scarlet.

“Obviously, I don’t know it. But think about it, if you have a planet that destroys modern tech, you need to go back to the basics. We’ve already seen that they can make primitive computers and harden them enough to work but I doubt that it would be possible with something like a modern space-drive. So they will have to use some ancient lander-system, with chemical rockets to boost it back into outer orbit. And boosting a couple of rocks to outer orbit is a lot easier than without such pesky things like life-support or needing to adhere to human acceleration tolerance.” Scarlet explained her thoughts on the matter, causing Keera to consider them carefully.

“They… could. But it would be a huge risk, in the past, whenever they had a prison-colony, they would eventually throw off their shackles, either peacefully or in a bloody revolt. Here, there would be no need to throw of shackles, just to grow our own food and we could tell them to get their monster crystals elsewhere. Unless they would try to root us out with orbital bombardment, they would be screwed. And orbital bombardment would just force us into the forests, unless they wiped the biosphere. It would be a no-win scenario.” Keera laid out, hoping that she was right.

“Unless… they considered that.” Scarlet answered, after a moment of consideration and with a heavy voice. “But it doesn’t really matter, we need to get you cleaned up, so let’s get going.” she continued, while shaking her head, as if she wanted to get rid of the thought and continued on her path, leaving Keera to follow or stay.

In Scarlet’s mind, there was a simple, elegant solution to the problem of rebellion. The Federation had them all sedated, what if they simply sterilized everyone shipped to Verdun? It would be easy and get rid of two problems at once, one of them the possibility of an independant long-term community on Verdun, the other the possibility of woman getting pregnant while serving their sentence. Such a pregnancy could cause quite a few problems, so better prevent them from the get-go. And while they were at it, they could harvest the zygotes from the females and a lot of sperm from the males, maybe for research on the genetic component of psions, it wasn’t as if the prisoners on Verdun needed them, right?

Behind her, Keera wondered of the sudden change in Scarlet, she was certain that the other had a theory, but a theory that caused her a lot of agitation. Keera was still not certain about her younger companion and she seemed to have her own agenda, but it might be an agenda that could be useful to herself. It wasn’t as if the crowds were gathering to support her, so despite the hatefulness of the pixie, she was the only one currently helping her.

At the river, Scarlet made sure that there was nothing new in the water, using quite a bit of power to scan, a slightly risky maneuver compared to her previous caution but it helped her to get the thoughts out of her head.

Looking back to Keera, she nodded to her, “It’s safe, nothing new in there. I’ll keep watch so you won’t be caught with your pants down, literally.”

The bad joke caused Keera to laugh despite herself, before she took of her shoes, socks and jacket, tugged up her shirt and stepped into the water, her pants still on. They needed to be washed anyway and she was not fully comfortable to strip in front of Scarlet, even if it was no more exposure than she had in the gym showers back at home. In the water, she removed the pants, letting the water wash away the remains of her accident but also driving home the fact that running water now meant the next river or stream.

The realisation that, if Scarlet was right, she would never be able to have a hot shower again almost caused Keera to drown herself then and there.

Washing herself, without soap or anything alike, did not take long and she pulled on her pants again, modesty driving her, even if it would be rather unpleasant to wear them back to camp. She didn’t see Scarlet shaking her head in wonder, thinking that the woman had just wet herself in front of her, like a toddler, but thought that seeing her in the buff would be embarrassing.

But Keera was out of the water so Scarlet started back towards their camp. They had a latrine to dig and Keera had to be told some uncomfortable truths.