Bronsen, on the boat. An unpleasant topic leads to a vow:

Having just discussed Bronsen's attraction to older women, there was a small gap.

Then Bronsen spoke again. "And, did you have a thing for older men?"

He had a big smile on his face when he said that. It didn't last long.

Cassy looked disgusted as she scrunched up her nose and flicked imaginary dirt from her fingers.

"Ugh, no freaking way. The very thought of some old man's hands stroking through my hair gives me the shits."

"No kidding," said Bronsen.

That good mood didn't last very long.

Wait, old man, stroking her hair...

"So you don't like someone stroking your hair because an old man did so - presumably sometime in the past?"

Hesitation from Cassy.

"Yes..."

"So that's why you don't like us boys from stroking your hair?"

Cassy jumped up and paced to and fro in the room. Given its small size, this was only three steps in either direction.

"I've already told Drayden some of this...

And I wasn't going to say anything more...

But, I suppose, given who you all are to me...

I guess I should really give a full explanation...

I've kept this a secret from everyone in my old life..."

"Fine, fine, Mr Bronsen. I'll tell you. And the others when appropriate."

"It was my father. Of course. Who else? And let's say the abuse didn't go all the way. Thank God. Or maybe thank System-san. But I had to more or less fight him off a few times before he got the message that I wasn't going to be accepting his."

Here, Cassy scrunched up her entire face.

"Advances"

"It's also the time when I took over the parenting of my little sister. Strewth, my mother is so hopeless; she caters to our father and doesn't take much notice of us at all. Until then, it never occurred to me that there was anything strange about this, but from then on, I really began to consider the weirdness of our family situation. I didn't have much of a comparison, mind you; after all, I was socially isolated and could only go by what I saw of other families in public and what I could piece together from the conversations of other students in my classroom. Still, I could tell after a while that our family wasn't very good. And I vowed to look after my sister to the best of my abilities."

"Oh," said Bronsen, "Well, I can't do much; well, how about a hug?"

He stood up, and they shared a hug.

"Sorry about this. I was hoping we could have some special fun this morning, even if it can only be strictly chaste, but..." said Cassy.

"That's fine. It really is. We still have a little bit of time left on this ringworld to get around to all of that. "

Big sigh from Bronsen.

"Even if it's all going to end all too soon," he said.

Some more hugging.

"And I sometimes worry about my sister now that I'm not there. But I try to suppress it as much as possible; after all, we are apparently tens of thousands of lightyears or more away from home, and goodness knows how many years - or even thousands upon thousands of years - away in time."

Hey, she said she made a vow!

"Say, what happens if you make a System vow to look after your sister? Come to think of it, why don't we both make a vow?" said Bronsen.

"But, what would that mean? We've already died on Earth."

"Who knows? But remember rule number one -"

"It's all Bullshit!" they both said.

They both giggled.

"OK, let's do it!" said Cassy.

Ding! Cassy and Bronsen have made a vow, 100% strength, to look after Cassy's sister Veronica for as long as she needs it, if this is ever possible. Alice and Drayden have been notified.

"But, what does it mean?" said Bronsen.

They share a look. "Perhaps we should think of that at some later stage? I'm not sure I want to right now," said Cassy.

Stolen novel; please report.

They sat on the floor and spent ten minutes doing nothing much in particular as they waited for the breakfast call.

Drayden, at Marmalade Island:

Drayden and Alice received the system announcement about the vow.

"What on the Ringworld does that mean?" said Alice.

"After all, we can't return to Earth," said Drayden.

"Ah, I know! Remember when we tried to warn Aragon by making a vow? And System-san shot down every attempt because it didn't meet the requirements for vows."

"That's right, we can't use vows to send messages. And?" said Drayden.

"Well, you see, there are explicit messages and implicit messages. This explicit message is all about Cassy's sister Veronica..."

"Ha! And the implicit message is that Cassy and Bronsen are alive and well, and because they can make a vow, un-collared!"

"Right. So let's make a vow in return."

Ding! Alice and Drayden have made a vow, 100% strength, to look after Cassy's sister Veronica for as long as she needs it, if this is ever possible. This message has been sent to Bronsen and Cassy.

"That worked surprisingly well!" said Drayden.

"Yes! They now have the implicit message that we are alive and well. It was quite cunning of them to make up a vow like that, wasn't it?"

"Yep. It sure was."

They relaxed and continued to lie there. However, the voices and noises of activity outside were now audible. Reminded that a whole slaver community was on the other side of the door, they sat up and decided to look presentable. This didn't take long, as they had slept in their clothes and had nothing else to fix.

"Assuming that Reggie bloke also brings us our breakfast, then while we are waiting, we should do some forward planning," said Drayden.

"The next step is obvious - we wait for the Order Lock to expire," said Alice.

"Yep, although you forgot the steps up to that - surviving in the middle of a slaver community while all of their orders are active."

"Ah, yes. But, it appears that might be easy since they don't have any orders at all about what to do with non-slaves in their midst."

"Now, that is extremely fortunate. Do you think that could be because we are smack bang in the middle of the slaver nation and on a small isolated island to boot, so the Blues and Greens never thought it was necessary to have such backup orders?" said Drayden.

Alice lifted her hands face up and the tip of her tail to signify that she didn't have a clue.

It didn't take them much longer to conclude that the only thing they could do was to survive and see what happens.

Bronsen and Cassy, on the ship:

Ding! Alice and Drayden have made a vow, 100% strength, to look after Cassy's sister Veronica for as long as she needs it, if this is ever possible.

"What!" said Cassy, jumping half a metre into the air.

"Oh," said Bronsen, who then deftly caught Cassy as she was about to collapse back onto the floor.

"I guess it's not surprising, after all, we are the Misfits," said Cassy.

"Yep, we are bound to do everything together!" said Bronsen.

"It's so nice of them to show solidarity to me like that. I'm definitely touched," said Cassy.

There was still some time before breakfast, so Bronsen suggested they continue their search of the contents of the cabin.

A lot of junk was piled up at one end of the cabin. They set to fossicking through it.

"Uck, a lot of not very clean clothes," said Cassy.

"Quite a little pile of metal and wood, bits of tools and simple machinery, a few books..." said Bronsen.

"Some writing paper and a collection of pens... Hello, this is a collection of porn!” said Cassy.

"Let's see! Ooh, it does nothing to me. Also, it's not very good, is it? It's painted, not photographed."

"Oh, what a shame you can't react to it. And, of course, it is painted; Felixians don't have photography. At least not yet."

"And, since all the 'models' don't have collars, this must have been stolen from some non-slave country," said Bronsen.

"The slaver society is so miserable, they can't even produce their own porn."

Bronsen continued digging through the pile and then found a box.

"Hey, this has got chocolate in it! At least a couple of hundred pieces!"

"Why, so it does." said Cassy, "I know, we should give some to the crew!"

Bronsen smiled an evil smile. "You mean we should bribe the crew."

Cassy had fun whacking him across his legs with her tail.

Alice, at Marmalade Island:

Somebody knocked on the door. So Alice went and unlocked it. Reggie came in, bearing two trays of crocigator stew, plus bread and marmalade.

"I've brought breakfast for the two Blues."

"You do remember they are dead, don't you?" said Alice.

"Sure, but I still have to follow orders."

"Never mind, we'll eat it, and then you can collect the dishes. That works for you?"

"OK."

Without further fuss, he left.

Alice turned to Drayden.

"This is like walking through a mechanical wind-up clock, with all the gears turning. Everything is moving exactly as planned, and everything totally ignores you, and as long as you stay out of the road, you probably won't get killed."

"Yeah. Sounds as good an analogue as anything. So, shall we wander around after breakfast and look at the marmalade manufacturing enterprise? And, of course, avoid getting killed."

Feeling moderately well-fed, they first wandered over to the community mess hall.

I need a distraction from thinking about Bronsen and Cassy.

Strolling through a bunch of slaves who might take it into their heads to kill us is probably a sufficient distraction.

Let's try it!

The reaction was exactly the same as last night. A few slaves got agitated at the sight of un-collared people but were promptly discouraged by the sight of those same people flicking around their swords.

And that was that.

I could feel a bit miffed that they so thoroughly ignore us...

"How about we stroll around the grounds and see how big the island is?" said Alice.

"Sure. We can work up an appetite for tea!"

"Which is so far far away."

They discovered one (small) docking area, which allowed a ship to float into the river from the sea and tie up to the jetty.

"See, the water is much shallower once you get into the river, so there are fewer chances that big predators could come in," said Drayden.

"But those slaves that have just arrived, they appear to be fishing for - "

There was a sudden flurry of activity as something in the water got tangled up in thick fishing lines tied to the dock. The Greys worked with some skill, and eventually, they dragged up the body of a medium-sized crocigator.

"So, that's where our crocigator stew comes from," said Alice.

"Did you notice that today's breakfast for the Greys was a combination of grey goop and small bits of crocigator?" said Drayden.

"Yeah, us substitute Blues certainly dine better than the common slave, don't we?"

They continued on their way and discovered that, yes, they were on an island. About two or three square kilometres in size. Rocky coastline all the way around except for the river bay. Covered in lines of orange trees and nothing much else. There were gently rolling hills, and the remarkably short river flowed from a lake in the middle.

"Where the hell does the water in the lake come from?" said Drayden.

"More System-san shenanigans, I suppose."

They even discovered a pagoda alongside the lake. It was much neglected; it couldn’t have been visited or used for years.

They sat on a bench, swinging their legs and holding hands, watching the water peacefully flow out of the lake and down the river.

This is just what the doctor ordered!

Alice snuggled up to Drayden.

There's no need to think about anything stressful right now, no need at all.