UNSEEN EYE 13: A new path
11 Jun 2022Orwell Vandeman
Perfect Ootholo mopped his brow with the sleeve of his red robe. He had told Brother Dorn he wasn’t actually a pilot; all Perfect had done for years was fly tiny shuttles from the lab, to the station. The flight took less that’s twenty seconds, and the auto pilot took care of everything else at both ends of the in-system journey. Nevertheless, Brother Dorn told Perfect to get to the cockpit on Guardian Napoleons’ orders. Perfect wasn’t ready for the massive Anaconda not handling like the tiny Adders he was use to at all. When he had tried to steer away from the black hole, the ship had been too slow responding and the safety systems dropped them out of supercruise. Now he had Brother Dorn shouting at him over the ships' intercom, and Perfect knew if he didn’t get the Conda under control, Guardian Napoleon would come to offer ‘guidance’. What help would that be? Unless Guardian Napoleon knew what all the buttons and switches on the consoles were for, no amount of Napoleons' brand of guidance was going to help.
Prefect had never flown with gravity influencing his craft, and now he was tumbling towards a black hole. Perfect, as he did every time, blamed his mom. Being called Perfect put a lot of pressure on a young man, and Perfect was not good under pressure.
Dorn, the orders computer expert, had his own problems. Intruders had boarded posing as Followers of The Unseen Eye, and there had been gunfire. Someone had spammed the button on the airlock where the ship’s captain had been imprisoned, and then lots of safety systems had started glitching. It was almost as if someone else was in the system with him. Every time Dorn troubleshot a miss-firing safety protocol, another one was triggered.
The atmospherics systems were running an emergency cooling test to counteract external overheating, and Dorn candled it before anyone would even feel a bit chilly, and then the internal airlock seals were released to run a pressure seal test. Dorn tensed and his fingers jabbed desperately at the keyboard attempting to cancel the test before the doors opened, but it was too late.
By the time Dorn had candled the test, all the internal airlocks had equalized pressure, opened and closed again giving the prisoner plenty of time to escape. Now Dorn had to inform Guardian Napoleon of another difficulty.
Napoleon had his own problems. His Guardians had stopped obeying orders and the civilian Followers were not staying in their cabins as he had commanded. It had started on the lower deck shortly after the jump.
“Look mommy” said a little girl lost in her red hood “It’s the Unseen Eye, I see it”
Napoleon and his enforcers turned to look out into space and it was right there in the black looking into every Seekers' soul to see if they were worthy of being shown the path. The people Napoleon was trying to force back into their cabin, pushed past him, a crime that would have been unimaginable a few moments ago.
The High Guardian enjoyed his work, keeping order so the Eye would be pleased that Napoleon had kept the flock in check and brought them before its holy gaze, orderly and humble as the High Seeker had instructed. Now he felt his job was done, and Napoleon fell to his knees crying his devotion to the Unseen Eye now it had reviled itself to its most loyal seekers.
With tears of devotional joy running down his cheeks, Napoleon got to his feet and pushed through the crowd of Seekers. He had to reach the orders' master and stand at his side; honour guard to The High Seeker Vandemans’ moment of triumphant ascendance.
High Seeker Orwell Vandemanhad his own problems. One of the rules he always followed when setting up a cult was, make the focus of devotion ineffable and easy to redefine if needed. Never make it something that could actually turn up and take the power out of your hands. Now Orwell was looking at a singularity bending light around itself, looking very much like an eye whose focus was rolling around the ship.
“Oh fuck in a ruck” whispered Orwell under his breath.
He didn’t want his Seekers to actually find the damn eye. Now he had to remember what bull-crap he had invented on the spot about what would happen when “the eyes gaze is upon us”.
Cults were a fantastic way to raise some credits, a workforce that practically enslaved themselves, and there were always eager young women looking for a shortcut to enlightenment by serving the Leader. Now his four girls were kneeling in front of a natural phenomenon crying their devotion to that instead of Orwell. The most dangerous thing that could happen to a cult leader was being deposed. When the power dynamic shifted, there was always blood.
Orwell could feel his temperature rising; his suit was trying to compensate and his mask blew cooled air onto his face. Getting hot was the first sign of stress, he had to get ahead of this right now or things could get much more stressful in very short order. Gathering everyone in the catalyst chamber and giving them his guidance should keep him ahead of.. . God damn Orwell wished he could remember what he had said about the eye. Normally, he kept notes in a holy book, but this time he was far too focused on building the chamber and dreaming of what he could buy with fields of crystalline gold.
“Rejoice my childrennn’ah” said Orwell with a buttery voice placing his hand on the shoulders of two of his girls “We have arrived, it is time my most exquisite Seekers..”
The door to his privet chambers opened. Only two people could open this door, Dorn, and Napoleon. Napoleon stumbled in and fell to his knees.
“You’ve done it, High Seeker, we are taking our final steps of the path” declared Napoleon who had clearly been crying. “But there are wilfully blind among us High Seeker. I tried to stop.. . “
Orwells’ head-bully was whining about doing his best, but Orwell wasn’t listening. An idea was forming and he needed to play out the steps he had so far. Orwell strode over to Napoleon and placed his golden tattooed hands on the mans' head.
“Worry not my loyal Guardiannn’ah. You have guarded the flock and kept us allll safe. So far”
Orwell smiled under his mask. He’d watch Napoleon calm down as he was assured, but the skinny man’s face froze in terror when Orwell had said ‘so far’. Orwell had Napoleons' full attention.
“Now is your test Napoleonn’ah, your test under the gaze of the Eye. The willlllfully biiind are here to stop us lighting the beacon. Gather the Seekers, have them guard the Monoliths so you and your fearless Guardians can hunt down and eradicate the bliiind’ah”
The High Guardian stood up, new purpose surged up his back as he bowed before his master. The eye was watching and Napoleon would not be lacking under the holy gaze. There would be no need for stun charges now.
Continued in Part 14