“A legend?”
“I'm sending you to look for Tommy Paine. Some members of the department don't think he exists. I do.”
“Tommy Paine?”
“A pseudonym that somebody hung on him way back before even my memory in this Section. Did you ever hear of Thomas Paine in American history?”
“He wrote a pamphlet during the Revolutionary War, didn't he?”
“ ‘Common Sense,’ ” Metaxa nodded. “But he was more than that. He was born in England but went to America as a young man and his writings probably did as much as anything to put over the revolt against the British. But that wasn't enough. When that revolution was successful he went back to England and tried to start one there. The government almost caught him, but he [pg 016] escaped and got to France where he participated in the French Revolution.”
“He seemed to get around,” Ronny Bronston said.
“And so does this namesake of his. We've been trying to catch up with him for some twenty years. How long before that he was active, we have no way of knowing. It was some time before we became aware of the fact that half the revolts, rebellions, revolutions and such that occur in the United Planets have his dirty finger stirring around in them.”
“But you said some department members don't believe in his existence.”
Metaxa grunted. “They're working on the theory that no one man could do all that Tommy Paine has laid to him. Possibly it's true that he sometimes gets the blame for accomplishments not his. Or, for that matter, possibly he's more than one person. I don't know.”