Ravens of Eternity
So instead, she backed away from it.
“I… I don’t get it,” said Freya. “The Benefactor’s dead? Like long dead. Decades dead. Or centuries dead. I don’t know, and I can’t tell. But a long time. How could he have orchestrated all this?”
“The Benefactor?” the Administrator said quizzically. “That is not the Benefactor. No, the Benefactor is a fabrication, a convenience, a mask used for intragalactic communications and negotiations. The Benefactor is not a real entity.