"War diary?" Sanders sat up and frowned at her. "You've been tapping the confidential war diary of the military commander-in-chief, Susan?"
"But, Kevin," she batted her eyelids demurely, "you always said that anything someone considers worth keeping a secret is probably worth knowing. Besides, he's a Fringer; it seemed like a good idea to check him."
"But if he catches you at it," Sanders said warningly, "not even Dieter's going to be able to save your shapely ass."
"No?" Krupskaya grinned a trifle crookedly. "Why do you think I warned you he's cleverer than you think? Here's my last intercept from his diary." She tossed him a sheet of facsimile.
"Ah?" Sanders glanced at the transcript and began to chuckle. After a moment, it became full-throated laughter, and he raised his glass ungrudgingly to the absent sky marshal. All it said was: "My Dear Vice Admiral. I trust you and Mister Sanders have enjoyed being on the 'inside.' L. Witcinski."
"And he accused me of enjoying it!"
"And he was right, you old reprobate!" Krupskaya shook her head wryly. "I'm still not certain how he caught me, but he thinks you put me up to it."
"Well, I suppose I did, in a sense," Sanders agreed lazily. "After all, I taught you everything you know."
"Not quite everything," she said dryly. "And before you start blowing your ego out your ears, I have something for you. Here." She handed him a sheaf of pages.
"Ah! An excellent job, Susan. Excellent!"
"Sure." She shook her head at him. "Kevin, what are you up to? Here's proof that Captain M'tana and Alistair Nomoruba are feeding information to the rebels, and you won't let me do a thing about it! Damn it, they've been doing it for over two years now!"
"So they have." Sanders finished the first sheet, nodded to himself and crumpled the paper, breaking the security coating, then tossed it into the ice-bucket at his elbow. The sheet touched melted ice-water and vanished as he turned to the second page.
"I've done a lot for you, Kevin," Admiral Krupskaya said sternly, "and I'll probably go right on doing it, but you owe me an explanation. I don't mind putting my career on the line, but sitting on this may violate my sworn oath as an officer."
"Sweet Susan," Sanders said soothingly, "the skill has not yet deserted these palsied old fingers. This old eye has not yet lost its keenness. This old ear has not yet-"
"Spare me a full catalog of decrepit organs that are still more or less functional," she interrupted rudely. "What you're saying-in your thankfully inimitable style-is that you know what you're doing?"
"Precisely."
"Kevin," she said with unaccustomed severity, "I'm no longer a wet-nosed snotty in your operation on New Valkha. I have my own duties-and I've run about as for with this as I intend to without an explanation."
"Ah, but your baby fat made you such a charming ensign," he said gently. "Still-" he weighed the angry fondness flashing in her eyes and shrugged "-perhaps it is time for the wily old master to enlighten his round-eyed, admiring disciple."
"Kevin-!"
"Pace, my dear!" His eyes still gleamed, but his voice was serious, and she settled back to listen. "Consider: I first tapped into this conduit less than a month after the POW letter exchanges began, correct?"
"Yes."
"Fine. And at the time, the information passing through it, while undoubtedly useful, wasn't precisely Galaxy-shaking. Correct again?"
"Yes."
"Well, as I taught you in the dim mists of your youth, my love, one never tampers with a conduit unless the information passing through it is of deadly importance. Instead, one monitors it, traces it, and, above all, makes certain it carries information in apparent security, thus preventing the ungodly from tinkering up something one doesn't know about to replace it. This is spook basic training manual stuff, is it not?"
"Yes, Kevin," she sighed. "But why not tell anyone about it?"
"My sweet, a secret is a secret when only one person knows it; anything else is simply more or less compromised information. Dear, toothsome Susan! I wouldn't have told you if you hadn't been moving into the worry seat at ONI!"
"And if you hadn't needed my help to stay tapped in!"
"That, too, of course," he admitted graciously.
"All right. I can accept that. But look at some of this stuff, Kevin! Details of the communications with the Orions to set up your trip. Or here-" she pointed at another sheet "-details of Cabinet meetings, for God's sake! We're talking heavy duty data, Kevin. This is no longer Assembly gossip!"
"And quite interesting it is, too," Sanders agreed brightly.
"Damn you, Kevin! Don't evade me! Why can't I even tell Heinz that someone inside the Cabinet is passing priceless data to the enemy?"
"Priceless?" Sanders finished the last page of the intercepts and watched it curl into nothingness in the ice-bucket. "Perhaps, and perhaps not."
He stirred the clear water and clinking ice with an idle forefinger.
"No 'perhaps' about it!" Krupskaya snorted.
"Actually, you know, there is," he corrected gently. "Consider this, my dear-everything you've picked up from the Cabinet is purely political. There hasn't been one scrap of military intelligence."
"That's true," she agreed slowly, her tone suddenly thoughtful.
"Now," Sanders purred, "who has access to all this-" he tapped the bland water in the ice-bucket "-but not to military data? The same Cabinet meeting which discussed sending me to the Orions also discussed our entire naval strategy, yet there's not a word of that in here. Surely that would be worth more to the rebels than, for example, Prime Minister Dieter's requests for opinions on granting the 'Republic' limited belligerent status?"
"Selective information," she said softly, nodding her head. "But why? You're right; it's valuable, but less valuable than military intelligence."
"Ah, but is it?"
"Damn you," she said without rancor. "Don't start your damned double-think on me now!"
"I'm not. But who does it have value for? The recipient . . . or the sender?"
"I don't pretend to understand that one-yet. But I will, I promise you!"
"I'm sure you will," he soothed, his smile taking the offense from his words. "You were always my best student, or you wouldn't be sitting where you are now. But unlike you, my love, I already know our mole's identity."
"And you don't intend to share it with me?" she said resignedly.
"No, Susan, I don't," he said, his suddenly flat tone contrasting sharply with his normal urbanity. Then he smiled again. "But it's a lovely game, my dear! I know-but does he know that I know? And if he does, does he know that I know that he knows that I know? Ad infinitum, of course."
"Kevin Sanders," she said acidly, "if I didn't trust you more than my own mirror, I'd have you in irons under babble juice therapy this second!"
"And, my dear," he purred, "if I didn't trust you-and know that you trust me-I would never have recommended you to run ONI, now would I?"
Susan Krupskaya laughed and shook her head. "Hold out your glass, you rotten old bastard," she said affectionately.
"Here. The latest information for Captain M'tana."
The tall man took the record chip and tucked it inside his tunic beside his holstered needler. He frowned.
"You seem displeased." The observation was made gently, but there was a chuckle in the voice.
"No, sir. It's just . . . just . . ."
"Just that it goes against the grain to pass things to rebels?"
"Well, yes, sir," the courier said unhappily.
"But we don't give them any military data, now do we? Just political information to let them know what's happening in the Cabinet and Assembly."