"What?" He realizes too late the impression he must have accidentally given. "No, she was proud of me. I followed in my dad's footsteps and she was proud of that. The real her was. But she died of cancer four years before my launch. She never got to see it." In some way, it might have spared her some pain. She didn't have to watch her baby boy get swallowed up by space, presumed dead.

"She was a good mother. That memory version of her was... twisted. It was someone using her to get to me. Try to break me." It very nearly worked.

"What was she like? Your mom?"