Status Updates From The Dispossessed (Hainish C...

"About the time sex began to go sour on me, so did the work. Increasingly. Three years without getting anywhere. Sterility. Sterility on all sides. As far as the eye can see the infertile desert lies in the pitiless glare of the merciless sun, a lifeless, trackless, feckless, fuckless waste strewn with the bones of luckless wayfarers..."

Takver did not laugh; she gave a whimper of laughter, as though it hurt.