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"Quick Ben," Kalam repeated. He sounded amused.
The man whose name had not been Quick Ben half a year ago arched an eyebrow in a silent question, looking not so much annoyed or begrudging the assassin his amusement, as mildly curious and more than willing to share in the amusement, should Kalam choose to enlighten him.
"It rather begs the question what, exactly, you're supposed to be quick at, doesn't it?"
"Quick of wit? Fast on my feet?" Quick Ben shrugged. "Does it matter?"
"Given that Fiddler cracked our code, one does wonder," Kalam said. "Some of your messages there at the end got rather ... personal. To say nothing of explicit. Crude, one might even say."
"I suspected the code might have been compromised." Quick Ben looked pensive. "I wonder if perhaps they only cracked part of the code, or if they simply chose to ignore those bits of the message."
Kalam snorted. "You think we wouldn't be the talk of every campfire if they'd actually fully deciphered that second to last one?"
"Well," Quick Ben said. "There is such a thing as discretion, after all."
Kalam scowled. "No such thing as privacy in a place like this."
"And yet you're here."
Kalam grinned. "It helps when they know you could slit their throats in their sleep. Or yours."
"You never would."
"Having them know that helps, too."
"They're just talking."
"I ain't here to look at them talk. If I wanted to see that, I could've just stayed right where I was."
"You don't think they know we're here, do you?"
"How would they know? Unless you don't keep your voice down already."
"Only, it feels like he's looking straight at me."
"You're imagining things."
"What're they talking about, do you think?"
"Not what you think they're talking about, probably. You and your perverted mind."
"Hey, you read that message, didn't you? I'm not the pervert around here."
"Do you think I should have told them?" Whiskeyjack asked bluntly.
Fiddler shrugged. He'd cracked the code, deciphered the messages - what was done with it after wasn't much of a concern to him. "Not my call, sir."
"A diplomatic answer, soldier."
Fiddler smiled faintly. "The way I look at it, people are going to find out anyway, and given that those two aren't idiots, they'll figure out that people know soon enough. Sir."
"The bets have already been placed, huh? No, no need to reply." Whiskeyjack sighed. "Let's just hope nobody's going to do anything stupid."
"We can always hope, sir."