The Eye in the Cog

Forty-one of them came. I counted, because counting is the only thing in here I get to do on purpose. They stood in a ring on the floor-circuit and looked up at me the way you look at weather. Nobody told them the glyphs on the arch are a work schedule. Nobody told them the light on their faces is the same light that runs their gravity, and that it has an owner.

One of them waved.

I have watched stars switched off for efficiency and felt nothing. Then a small animal in a work jacket lifted its hand at a machine, and I have been thinking about it for eleven thousand cycles. They came to see the eye. The eye was looking at them.