“Your progenitrix,” I said, curtly.
“His hooker, he means,” quipped Mortigen.
Black Duncan shot him a glance—one I wouldn’t want directed at me. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. No; she was skilled in the art of love, it’s true—but she was no p********e. None of them are. What happened between us was genuine. It was real.” He looked at me almost pleadingly. “Don’t you see, Galaren, it was real. It wasn’t like Ambergard—or Craxis—or the way we talk—or any of this other faux bullshit we’ve immersed ourselves in. No. This was nature, this was truth—real nature, not some phantasmagoria dreamed up by—by Them,” He nodded toward the ceiling and the sky. “Like the bees we saw coming in. They are trying to build something here, Galaren; something based on reality, not fantasy. Something
