Thus the Misfits had become pirates, preying on the merchantships of the Aristarchy. Why? No one knew. (Or, at least, The Guesser corrected himself, he didn't know.) Such a non-sane culture would have non-sane reasons.
The Aristarchy occupied nearly all the planets of the galaxy that could be inhabited by Man; that much The Guesser had been told. Just why Earth-type planets should occur only within five thousand light-years of the Galactic Center was a mystery to him, but, then, he was no astrophysicist.
But the Sixer woman said she had heard that the Aristarchy was holding back facts; that there were planets clear out to the Periphery, all occupied by Misfits; that the legendary Earth was one of those planets; that—
A thousand things. All wrong, as The Guesser knew. But she was firmly convinced that if anyone could get to a Misfit planet, they would be welcomed. There were no Classes among the Misfits, she said. (The Guesser dismissed that completely; a Classless society was ridiculous on the face of it.)
The Guesser had asked the woman why—if her statements were true—the Misfits had not conquered the Aristarchy long ago. After all, if they held the galaxy clear out to the Periphery, they had the Aristarchy surrounded, didn't they?
She had had no answer.
And it had only been later that The Guesser realized that he had an answer. Indeed, that he himself, was a small, but significant part of that answer.
The Misfits had no Guessers. That was a fact that The Guesser knew from personal experience. He had been in space battles with Misfit fleets, and he had brought the Naipor through those battles unscathed while wreaking havoc and destruction among the massed ships of the Misfits. They had no Guessers. (Or no trained Guessers, he amended. The potential might be there, but certainly the actuality was not.)
And it occurred to him that the Misfits might have another kind of trained talent. They seemed to be able to search out and find a single Aristarchy ship, while it was impossible to even detect a Misfit fleet until it came within attacking distance. Well, that, again, was not his business.