Lord, I am here; I have taken off my helmet. Peyeala’s air is breathable, clean, better than anything on Earth. Its double-star system has not burned my flesh. Its gravity, three times ours, has not crushed my bones. Its ambient lighting hurt my eyes, but my retinae have adapted and can withstand it now. All enhancements made to me have proven successful.

All is well.

Lord, see my screen; perfection in graphs, perfection in numbers; even the data says hope has been found here, amongst the stars . . .

O Divine Master, yet I ask You to fill me with Your wisdom and understanding—should I press this button, send forth this beacon, and let them know they can survive the journey to, and on, Peyeala’s hallowed grounds?

I am undecided; help my heart.

Lord, and have mercy on me.

My sin is the sin of ungratefulness.

You demand us to overflow with thanksgiving. They made me what I am. Made me more than an ape. With the push of this button, I can repay them tenfold, yet I cannot bring my fingers to do this act of thanksgiving.

Have mercy . . .

But Lord, know my heart.

On Earth, between studies and body enhancement surgeries, I never had time to think on my own, and all was good. Yet, in my solitary and depressing journey through the light-years, from star to star to star, my mind learnt to wander in itself; I contemplated matters I never knew I could, and arrived at altars of questions against my very existence . . . and to question my existence was to question my mission, and to question my mission was to question their hope. After letting their world implode in political wars, after letting their environment degrade beyond restoration because of soul-greed and wickedness—how dare they seek new worlds in the heavens? How dare they hope for a second chance?

These were just questions to me: nothing that could hinder the mission.

I was still on their side.

Until I landed on Peyeala . . .

I felt a rage inside myself on seeing the plots around me, the untarnished gloria; a rage that could not have been of You, Lord. Could it? I looked at the firmament and saw the bluest sky, blue as a child’s forgiveness. I saw nameless trees running for endless acres in freedom, oblivious of the aliens who might come and cut them down. I turned to the east and I heard a river flowing in search of its untouched sea. What creatures roamed here, these yellow woodlands, and were they even aware they could be murdered for the very parts that made up their beings? The smells around me were a merge of citrus and freshly dug soil, and sweet, sweet innocence.

Peyeala-55 they had named this planet in their blasphemous narcissism, their arrogance: daring to label, to touch, all the things they should not. Who gave them ownership of the cosmos? How can the finite and flawed dream to own the boundless and the perfect? Why did they not maintain their own side of the universe, our own side of the universe?

And, now, I must be the mother of their sacrilege.

Lord, I am Eve before Your forbidden fruit again.

This button.

What is the right thing to do, O God Almighty?

Humans are more than the pain they so often give, I know. As catastrophic as they can be, there is a beauty to them that still haunts my mind. How they fall in love. How they hope. How they create. How they laugh. With all the ill I know they may bring here, there is still a small part of my soul that believes humans have learnt better, believes humans deserve and will treat their second chance better. There is no serpent tempting me in this strange Eden, but for these thoughts in my mind.

Help me make the right choice, O Lord; in Your mighty name, I pray.

Amen.