“So?” Ronny said. “I'd think that'd be a deal that would take centuries to change.”
The Section G agent laughed. “Tommy Paine stayed just long enough to introduce gunpowder. That was the end of those impregnable castles up on the hills.”
“What gets me,” Ronny said slowly, “is his motivation.”
The other two both grunted agreement to that.
Toward the end of his indoctrination studies, Ronny appeared one morning at the Octagon Section G offices and before Irene Kasansky. Watching her fingers fly, listening to her voice rapping and snapping, O.K.-ing and rejecting, he came to the conclusion that automation could go just so far in office work and then you were thrown back on the hands of the efficient secretary. Irene was a one-woman office staff.
She looked up at him. “Hello, Ronny. Thought you'd be off on your assignment by now. Got any clues on Tommy Paine?”
“No,” he said. “That's why I'm here. I wanted to see the commissioner.”
“About what?” She flicked a switch. When a light flickered on one of her order boxes, she said into it, “No,” emphatically, and turned back to him.
“He said he wanted to see me again before I took off.”