To me this is reminiscent of Santana’s pep talk at the beginning of Westward’s first mission. A fitting nod at the beginning of her second, no? But this one has a new twist: The comparison of Escherspace to a bomb. Anyone who has read Westward up to this point will understand why: We now know that Escherspace technology in the hands of Viktor Grafeneck was responsible for the Epiphany disaster that nearly wiped life off of Earth. This also echos her warnings to Ben Schultz as he was trying to devise a way to preserve the Earth that his family had worked so relentlessly to preserve. -e