m than he
did. Presumably, she _could_ talk, if she wanted, even during a meal.

And he was glad that she had not tried to eat at the same time. To have
his food cooked and served by a Six didn't bother him, nor was he
bothered by her hovering nearby. But if she had sat down with him to
eat--

But she hadn't, so he dropped the thought from his mind.

Afterwards, he felt much better. He actually hadn't realized how hungry
he had been.

She took the dishes out and returned almost immediately.

"You thought what you going to do?" she asked.

He shook his head. He hadn't thought. He hadn't even wanted to think. It
was as though, somewhere in the back of his mind, something kept
whispering that this was all nothing but a very bad dream and that he'd
wake up in his cubicle aboard the _Naipor_ at any moment.
Intellectually, he knew it wasn't true, but his emotional needs, coupled
with wishful thinking, had hamstrung his intellect.

However, he knew he couldn't stay here. The thought of living in a Class
Six environment all the rest of his life was utterly repellent to him.
And there was nowhere else he could go, either. Even though he had not
been tried as yet, he had effectively been Declassified.

"I suppose I'll just give myself over to the Corporation," he said.
"I'll tell them I was waylaid--maybe they'll believe it."

"Maybe? Just only maybe?"

He shrugged a little. "I don't know. I've never been in trouble like
this before. I just don't know."

"What they going to do to you, you give up to them?"

"I don't know that, either."

Her eyes suddenly looked far off. "Me, I got an idea. Maybe get both of
us some place."

He looked at her quickly. "What do you mean?"

Her gaze came back from the distance, and her eyes focused squarely on
his. "The Misfits," she said in her flat voice. "We could go to the
Misfits."

III

The Guesser had been fighting the Misfits for twenty years, and hating
them for as long as he could remember. The idea that he could ever
become one of them had simply never occurred to him. Even the idea of
going to one of the Misfit Worlds was so alien that the very suggestion
of it was shocking to his mind.

And yet, the suggestion that the Sixer woman had made did require a
little thinking over before he accepted or rejected it.

The Misfits. What did he really know about them, anyway?

They didn't call themselves Misfits, of course; that was a derogatory
name used by the A