Ronny said unhappily, “Then you're of the opinion that there is a Tommy Paine?”
The older agent was puffing comfortably on an old style briar pipe. He nodded definitely. “I believe Tommy Paine exists as an organization. Possibly once, originally, it was a single person, but now it's a group. How large, I wouldn't know. Probably not too large or by this time somebody would have betrayed it, or somebody would have cracked and we would have caught them. Catch one and you've got the whole organization what with our modern means of interrogation.”
Tog said, “I've heard the opinion before.”
Jheru Bulchand pointed at Ronny with his pipe stem. “If its an organization, then none of that eliminating you did is valid. Your assassin could have been one of the women. He could have been one of the men you eliminated as too young—someone recently admitted to the Tommy Paine organization.”
Ronny checked the last of his theories. “Why did Section G send six of its agents here?”
“Nothing to do with Tommy Paine,” Bulchand said. “It's a different sort of crisis.”
“Just for my own satisfaction, what kind of crisis?”
Bulchand sketched it quickly. “There are two Earth type planets in this solar system. Avalon was the first to be colonized and developed rapidly. After a couple of centuries, Avalonians went over and settled on Catalina. They eventually set up a government of their own. Now Avalon has a surplus of industrial products. Her economic system is such that she produces more than she can sell back to her own people. There's a glut.”
Tog said demurely, “So, of course, they want to dump it in Catalina.”
Bulchand nodded. “In fact, they're willing to give it away. They've offered to build railroads, turn over ships and aircraft, donate whole factories to Catalina's slowly developing economy.”