Later that day, after two more training-sessions driving Keera to the brink of brain-damage, Scarlet finally conceded to start making camp. On their journey, she had taken down two more crystal monsters, one rockdog and one nutty squirrel, so things were looking up. While Keera was, once again, unconscious after a brutal, mental exercise, Scarlet considered what she had learned from her.

She took the tales related to her with more than a grain of salt, more with an entire salt-mine, considering that they had been told by either flirting or bragging psions, possibly with a deeper agenda.

It seemed that most psions constantly rotated their monsters, not letting them grow and that, for some reason, just days after a core was harvested a new monster appeared in roughly the same area. So, most psions had their routes, a circuit spanning a few days march, that they simply walked off every month, taking down enough monsters without ever risking their monsters or themselves.

The explanation made sense to Scarlet and told her quite a bit more about Albertina and why it worked the way it did. It was, essentially, a feudal society with Doctor Oak as King and the psions as noble caste. Not by God’s Grace, but by the ancient tradition of might makes right. Doctor Oak was likely the most powerful psion which gave him control over the supplies, which, in turn, was used to keep people under control.

The mundanes were the lower caste, whether you wanted to call them peasants, serfs or whatever, they lived simply because they were useful, either for lowly and hard labour, or ot be used by the psions as diversions. And that was why Albertina worked, the peasants could choose between dying in the wilds, ripped apart by crystal monsters and normal animals, or they could live under the psions control. The psions, in turn, could either live like nobles in a feudal society, pushing the mundanes around, abusing them for their entertainment, or they could try to make it on their own, on a rather hostile planet, without medical supplies and so on. On their own, they would be reduced to hunter/gatherers, which was great for short stretches of time, but without a way to either repair or replenish tools, even Scarlet wouldn’t want to live off the land full-time. It would be highly difficult and that was without considering winter-time.

In addition, the other psions ceased to work in pairs as soon as possible, using simple routes and rotating crystal monsters to avoid having to work too hard. That way, they were ten, maybe fifteen days out, for every month. The rest of the time was used to guard the town, which was rewarded with credits, earned in relative safety, a cushy job the Doctor used to reward loyalty to him. It was, in Scarlet’s opinion, a brilliant system of control, as long as the Doctor controlled the town, the psions would obey him, either to retain their cushy gig of guarding the town, living very much like the nobles of a bygone era, or to get access to off-world goods. Once you were addicted to one of the recreational drugs, you wanted to keep taking it. Scarlet had seen addicts in her youth, they could be the worst sort of scum, the type that would happily slit their own mother’s throat, just for their next fix. She had no doubt that the Doctor used that addiction to the fullest, like a carrot dangling on a string, pushing them to gather as many crystals as they could, allowing him and his cronies to fulfill their quota without ever leaving town.

Shaking those thoughts, she tried, once again, to understand why her two crystal monsters obediently tagged along with her, to the point that the mental connection was more one of sharing instead of controlling. Part of her wondered if that was the reason, but it seemed circular, her monsters didn’t fight her, thus she was able to give them more mental leash, thus they didn’t fight her. It simply didn’t work like that. She tried to remember when she had noticed that it became easier to control them, but again, nothing in her memories stood out, it had simply happened.

Was it simply because she treated them like sentient, maybe even sapient, creatures, not just tools? But such a simple explanation was just that, too simple. Even if the vast majority of psions were criminals, wouldn’t they have noticed something? It seemed ridiculous, but it was the best explanation she currently had, weak as it was. But did she really need to know what set her apart? It was a curiosity but maybe it was just one of those things that had to be accepted, not questioned, like the question why some humans developed psionic abilities. The answer might even be related, that the individual circumstances of her power-development had led to the compatibility with Crystal Monsters.

“So, Missy, want to tell me why you seem to be obedient, unlike your brethren? It’s not a very feline quality, is it?” Scarlet asked, as she picked Cyca up to give the cat that was rubbing against her leg some scritches. The crystal monster might know the answer to the question Scarlet was pondering, but if she did, she did not tell.

But the voice seemed to have shaken Keera from her post-exercise coma, and she pushed herself up with a groan of discomfort.

“You are making progress, Keera.” Scarlet told her, her voice chipper.

Keera looked over, still a little bleary eyed, “You know, if you want to encourage me, you are doing it wrong. Sitting there, with your cute cat on your lap, petting it like some movie-villain, that’s not encouraging.” Keera complained, her voice trying to project levity. But even knowing that she was Scarlet’s follower, pupil and general dependant on her, seeing her stretched out, almost lounging, on a rock facing towards the setting sun, soaking in the rays with her feline monster curled up on her lap, purring contently, was just too much to bear for Keera, who was just coming around after having tortured her mind to the brink once again.

“I could show you the measures taken in the Pandora-Institute, I have the memories. Are you sure you want their version of encouragement?” Scarlet asked, her voice similar to Keera’s but with a slightly threatening edge.

Keera instantly shook her head, remembering the memory fragments she had received with the one skill Scarlet had transmitted to her. It had made her rather glad that her psionic talent was limited, compared to that of her new partner. Or maybe thinking of her as her leader was better.

“Thought so. Anyway, I think we’ll have to think of a way to get your Badgy at least some combat, you are no use when you are a stumbling wreck. Maybe train three times a day, before breakfast, during lunch and after dinner, that would give you quite some time in which you can be useful.” Scarlet suggested, her voice mellow again.

Some time passed, Keera getting her hurting head under control by submerging it in the cool brook next to them while she was considering her situation and Scarlet’s latest order.

“You really don’t need me, do you?” Keera asked, once she had put everything together.

“Define ‘need’. I managed to get along without too much trouble for ten days, gathering a boat-load of crystals, enough to pay my quota for a month, with some left over. I also almost died during those ten days, not that your presence would have prevented that,” Scarlet started to explain, deciding that, with the seed she had placed into Keera’s mind earlier, she could tell a little more of her inner thoughts.

“You are, to be honest, an investment. For now, I invest time and effort into training you and making sure that you survive, hoping that you will be useful down the road. To be honest, I don’t think I would be satisfied to stay in the valley for the rest of my life. And I’m not sure I trust the Federation to let any one of us off-planet.” she continued her thoughts, falling silent at the end.

“Dean, one of the guards, told me that psions are allowed off planet at the end of their sentence, as long as they showed good behaviour. A few even shipped out already, although not many, but that’s not too much of a surprise, Albertina is only a few years old, so not too many have served their time.” Keera answered, remembering what she had been told.

“Oh? Wonderful, now, would you tell me what my time is? My crime was ‘being inconvenient for Psicom’.” Scarlet answered, her voice sharp and cutting, before she caught herself, “Ah, whatever, forget about it. I’m going to bed.”

With that, she left a speechless Keera sitting on the ground, looked for a good tree to sleep on and rapidly climbing up, not wanting to talk any more. She had already said too much.