"I'm not! I'm not!"
"Of course you are. Like us, you do not breathe air—"
"I do...." And then Emrys remembered that the rope had not cut off his breath, and it might well have been because he had not been breathing.
"Like us, you do not eat food."
"But I do!" And here Emrys was genuinely perplexed.
"We left you your digestive system, because part of the pleasure you craved comes through that. But you could completely deny yourself the food that you thought sustained you and feel no ill effects—at least no physical ones. It's the pills that feed you, Emrys."
"Well," Emrys said slowly, "they're food, then."
"Of a sort. But not the kind you mean. You cannot exist without us and our skills, Emrys. Each vial of pills consists of the mitogenetic force of ten tons of life."
"What kind of life?" Emrys asked.
"Does it really matter?"