"Ah," he says, and then a moment later, again, "Ah." After that, he's quiet for a long time. It all sounds right. It's funny, of course: it's his job to ferret out all those hidden motivations, to search for things that will indict or exonerate. Not to analyze, technically speaking; raw data is what he mines, for those basement-dwellers to smelt into ore that is forged into the swords and axes of the Imperium's strangest army. But all the same, he sometimes tests the data himself - considers, pries, pokes, thinks. Analyzes. He's good at it. He thinks sometimes, in another life - a more regular life - he might have been a passable analyst. But this is an analysis he couldn't have made.

Why not? Is he losing his touch? Or is he simply that blind to himself? Who knows. But laid out like that, convincingly as any formal report, it all makes sense. Something to set departmental policy by.

He finally takes a drink. Deep and thirsty. Then he drags his sleeve over the back of his mouth. "So your trust is absolute." A moment of pensive silence before he asks, "Have you...surmised who I really work for, then?"