So far, the Jellies didn’t know where the object was. That much was clear. The aliens appeared to believe it lay somewhere among a cluster of stars counter-spinward (by which Kira took them to mean against the galactic rotation).

One line in particular struck her: [[—when the Vanished made the Idealis.]] She went over it several times to make sure she understood. So the Soft Blade was a constructed thing. Were the Jellies saying that some other species had made it? Or were the Vanished also Jellies?

Then she chanced upon the name of the object: the Staff of Blue.

For a moment, the sounds of the ship ceased and all Kira heard was the pounding of her pulse. She knew that name. Unbidden, a spasm roiled the Soft Blade, and with it a wave of information. Understanding. Remembrance:

She saw a star—the same reddish star she had beheld once before. Then her view rushed outward, and the star appeared set among its nearest neighbors, but the constellations were strange to her, and she felt no sense for how they fit within the shape of the heavens.

A disjunction, and she saw the Staff of Blue, the fearsome Staff of Blue. It swung, and flesh and fibers tore themselves apart.

It swung, and ranks of machines crumpled beneath the blow.

It swung, and a sheaf of shining towers tumbled to the cratered ground.

It swung, and spaceships blossomed as fiery flowers.

Another place … another time … a chamber tall and stark, with windows that looked upon a brownish planet wreathed with clouds. Beyond it hung the ruddy star, huge in its nearness. By the largest window, dark against the swirling shine, she saw the Highmost standing. Gaunt of limb, strong of will, the first among the first. The Highmost crossed one set of arms, the other held the Staff of Blue. And she mourned for what now was lost.

Kira returned to reality with a start. “Shit.” She felt light-headed, overwhelmed. Certainty gripped her that she had just seen one of the Vanished in the form of the Highmost. And it had definitely not been one of the Jellies.

Which meant?… She was having difficulty focusing, and the throbbing ache of the summons didn’t help.

The Staff of Blue was terrifying. If the Jellies got their tentacles on it … Kira shuddered at the thought. And not just her; the Soft Blade also. Humanity had to find the staff first. Had to.

Worried that she’d missed something, she returned to the message logs and started to go over them again.

The pressure in her skull pulsed, and shimmering halos appeared around the lights in the control room. Kira’s eyes watered. She blinked, but the halos didn’t go away.

“Enough,” she muttered. If anything, the summons grew stronger, drumming in her head with an inexorable beat, pounding, pulling, probing—drawing her toward the panel, an ancient duty yet unfulfilled …

She forced her attention back to the display. Surely there was a way to—