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“Yes, yes,” The Guesser had said impatiently, “but what’s that to do with us?”

She waved a hand, as though she were a little flustered by his peremptory tone. She wasn’t, after all, used to talking with Class Threes as equals, even though she knew that in this case the Three was helpless.

“I tell you! I tell you!” She paused to reorganize her thoughts. “But I ask you: if we get on a ship, you can keep it from shooting the Misfit ships?”

The Guesser saw what she was driving at. It didn’t make much sense yet, but there was a glimmer of something there.

“You mean,” he said, “that you want to know whether it would be possible for me to partially disable the fire-control system of a spaceship enough to allow it to be captured by Misfit ships?”

She nodded rapidly. “Yes … I think, yes. Can you?”

“Ye-e-es,” The Guesser said, slowly and cautiously. “I could. But not by just walking in and doing it. I mean, it would be almost impossible to get aboard a ship in the first place, and without an official position I couldn’t do anything anyway.”

But she didn’t look disappointed. Instead, she’d smiled a little. “I get us on the ship,” she said. “And you have official position. We do it.”

When she had gone on to explain, The Guesser’s mind had boggled at her audacity–at first. And then he’d begun to see how it might be possible.

For it was not until then that the woman had given The Guesser information which he hadn’t thought to ask about before. The first was her name: Deyla. The second was her job.

She was a cleaning woman in Executive territory.

And, as she outlined her plan for reaching the Misfits, The Guesser began to feel despair slipping from his mind, to be replaced by hope.

* * * * *

The Guesser plodded solemnly along the street toward the tall, glittering building which was near the center of Executive territory, his feet moving carefully, his eyes focused firmly on the soft, textured surface of the pavement. He was clad in the rough gray of a Class Six laborer, and his manner was carefully tailored to match. As he was approached by Fours and Fives, he stepped carefully to one side, keeping his face blank, hiding the anger that seethed just beneath the surface.

Around his arm was a golden brassard indicating that he was contracted to a Class One, and in his pocket was a carefully forged card indicating the same thing. No one noticed him; he was just another Sixer going to his menial job.

The front of the building bore a large glowing plaque which said:

VIORNIS EXPORT CORPORATION

But the front entrance was no place for a Sixer. He went on past it, stepping aside regularly for citizens of higher class than his own assumed Six. He made his way around to the narrow alley that ran past the rear of the building.

There was a Class Five guard armed with a heavy truncheon, standing by the door that led into the workers entrance. The Guesser, as he had been instructed by Deyla, had his card out as he neared the doorway. The guard hardly even glanced at it before wagging a finger indicating that The Guesser was to pass. He didn’t bother to speak.

The Guesser was trembling as he walked on in–partly in anger, partly in fear. It seemed ridiculous that one glance had not told the guard that he was not a Class Six. The Guesser was quite certain that he didn’t look like a Sixer. But then, Fives were not very perceptive people, anyway.

The Guesser went on walking into the complex corridors of the lower part of the building, following directions that had been given him by Deyla. There was no hesitation on his part; his memory for things like that was as near perfect as any record of the past can be. He knew her instructions well enough to have navigated the building in the dark.