To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

After Kira kills the alien, The Soft Blade is not a secret from the passengers anymore. Falconi orders Trig to destroy the birthing room on the alien ship, and Kira, worried about Trig, goes along. They secure the ship, but Kira feels that pull again, a summons from some place on the ship. She follows it to the front of the ship, where she finds a large, coral-like structure and computer panels. When she accesses the panels, she is subjected to an onslaught of memories from the xeno.

She learns that there were other xenos, but only this one remains. The Jellies call themselves Wranaui and use scent, called nearscent and farscent, for communication instead of sound. They are a highly hierarchical society that refers to humans as two-form, and their records indicate that the humans started the war. They are looking for the Staff of Blue, which will allow them to win the war, and Kira realizes that the humans must find it first. She feels the summons again, pulls a large purple crystal from the display, and crushes it. A Jelly immediately attacks her, but Falconi appears and shoots the alien. She wonders if the crystal sent out the xeno’s location before she destroyed it. Then Gregorovich informs them that every Jelly ship in the system is heading toward the Wallfish.

Kira tells Falconi that she had just destroyed a transmitter. She explains the pull of the summons, and Falconi is angry and threatens to leave her since she has called all the Jellies to their location. In the end, they return to the Wallfish, and Kira tells them about the Staff of Blue. As the ship takes off, Kira focuses on a map of the galaxy to see if she can find the star she had seen in her vision, where the Staff of Blue is located.

When they arrive at Malpert, they are not allowed to land because of the alien ships following them. New alien ships have arrived, but they are not Jellies. The new ships attack Jellies and humans alike and seem unconcerned with their own survival. Nobody recognizes the ships, and Kira can tell that the xeno does not recognize them either. Kira locates the planet where the Staff of Blue is located, and tells Falconi just as he finally gets permission to land on Malpert.

Two of the new alien ships head toward Malpert. One is hit, but the other docks, and the aliens exit and begin killing people. Kira notes that they do not seem to have the intelligence to have built their ship. While she is waiting to speak to the UMC, Kira breaks up a fight among the Entropists and some Numenists, worshippers of numbers. However, when one of the Numenists attacks her, the xeno stabs him, injuring but not killing him. The passengers disembark. The Entropists give Kira a disc with a fractal pattern, a token of safe passage to their home, before leaving. Inarë also says goodbye and offers some words of wisdom, saying “Eat the path” (277). The Wallfish receives word that the new aliens are attacking throughout the system. Captain Akawe of the UMC Darmstad wants to interview both Kira and Falconi, and she is relieved she will not be alone.