Actually, I don't believe they're gonna be shipped together, but maybe I should think a little bit more about that option. What I do think is that Peter was nice to Ant just because he wanted Ant to listed to his advice and be good, so that Richard would want to keep him and ship Peter. If Richard was not happy with Ant, Peter would lose that opportunity.
The direction of the story is not clear, but Ant just repeats on his failure to stay hidden and unnoticed every time. He gets to see some unusual part of the base that other slaves never get to. He is going to get messed up in trouble with different 'commanders' there, until eventually he will be in so much trouble that something really big will happen.
That's my theory, anyway.