Chapter 24: Upstream Names, Downstream Blood
Day 121 – 02:00 ship time
Coast speed: 1 480 km/s
Distance to next target: 0.7 light-hours
Interior: children's choir still humming through passages
Karl sat in the blister, boots unmag-locked, letting 0.05 g drift him like a pendulum. Outside, brown-dwarf embers faded astern; ahead, only Voss's list burned in the nav screen—three names, three coordinates, three more hands to break:
1. Hub Nyx – DESTROYED (Day 120)
2. Hub Polyphemus – child-refit yard, 0.6 LH core-ward
3. Hub Ascending – upstream upstream, buyer of buyers
He stared at the third entry longest. Ascending sat at the top of the pyramid, the name Voss whispered only after an hour of steel-eyed silence. "You burn Ascending," Voss had said, "the market forgets how to stand."
Day 121 – 06:30
Children's morning
The ship woke to leaf-counting. One hundred twenty voices took turns in the galley—porridge from rehydrated oats, mint tea from fresh cuttings, laughter that made mugs float and bump like slow-motion billiards. Ayla taught smaller kids how to fold basil into tiny paper boats; the boats drifted on tea surfaces, green flags on zero-g seas.
Tala recorded metrics: weight gain averaging 180 g per child per day—slow but steady. Bruises yellowed. Eyes brightened. Counting songs stopped at one hundred twenty, no longer forty-three.
Day 121 – 10:00
Intel peel
Jun chained Voss to a console in the brig, gravity gentle, screen bright. "Upstream names, routes, encryption keys. Speak, live. Hoard, die."
Voss spoke—voice cracked but useful. Polyphemus: a refit yard turning kidnapped children into "indentured crew" – micro-chip implants, vocal cords surgically muted, memories chemically scrubbed. Output: docile labour sold to fringe colonies. Ascending: the apex consortium, shareholders anonymous, meeting location shifting every cycle, identified only by a ciphered call-sign: "Ascending-Prime."
Jun copied everything, cross-checked against nav logs, found a pattern—Ascending-Prime convened forty-three hours after each major auction. Next meet: Day 125, coordinates 14.8 by -29.1, deep in the cluster's gravity well, aboard a mobile dread-yacht code-named "The Quiet Lift."
Karl felt the old count settle in his bones again—forty-three—like a ghost that refused eviction.
Day 121 – 14:00
Forge the upstream bait
They stripped four more dummy cores from Haven's surplus, planted them with cutting charges and tracker beacons. Selene painted them corporate grey, stenciled a fake logo: "Ascending Holdings." Miguel welded a new manifold—secondary lance coil rated for 60 kW, narrow focus, designed to pierce dread-yacht armor at 2 km. They called the add-on "Ascending-Bitter."
Tala prepared medical assault packs: sedative counters for chemically-blanked children, IV kits for malnourished labourers, burn gel for plasma wounds. She labelled each pack with a basil leaf sticker—green promise inside pain.
Day 121 – 18:30
The children's council
One hundred twenty elected five speakers—ages 12 to 16—who requested audience with "Captain Leaf." Karl knelt in the dorm aisle, visor up, eyes level.
Speakers' request: "Let us come. We know cargo holds, we know silence, we can help free others."
Karl's instinct screamed no; his pulse counted forty-three reasons why children should never again see cages. But the oldest girl met his gaze—steady, fire behind eyes—and he remembered counting leaves in vacuum, remembering steel.
He answered soft: "You come as crew, not cargo. First sign of breach, you hide. That is law."
They nodded, solemn. Ayla placed a basil sprig in his breast pocket—permission and blessing.
Day 122 – 00:00
Departure under new moon
Hearth-Hammer cast off from Haven-3, drives cold for first six hours. Children stood in blister rows, palms on glass, watching the wheel shrink. Some cried; most stared, silent, determined. The garden stayed behind, but every child carried leaves pressed in pockets or tucked behind ears—green passports into war.
Karl spoke on intercom: "We fly upstream. We come back with rivers of names. Count with me."
They counted—one, two… one hundred twenty… six hundred… infinity—voices rising until metal rang.
Day 122 – 08:15
Dark coast planning
Coast speed: 1 500 km/s
Range to Polyphemus: 0.5 light-hours
Thrust: zero, heat dumped, silhouette black
Jun plotted approach: Polyphemus rotated once every 90 minutes, gravity 0.08 g at rim. Child-refit labs occupied spokes B and C; core storage in D; admin in A. Guard estimate: 80 private security, plasma lances, auto-turrets. Child population: unknown, estimated 400-600 in various stages of "processing."
Karl divided team:
- Karl & Miguel – lab breach, child extraction
- Selene – turret disable, demo charges
- Jun – data theft, comm jam, upstream names
- Tala – triage, sedation reversal, head-count
- Children's council – pod guidance, calm presence, count verification
They drilled each corridor, each timing, each exit. Failure meant 400-600 voices lost; success meant upstream blood for the first time.
Day 122 – 20:00
The upstream promise
Karl floated to each child bunk, pressed a basil leaf into small palms. "This is your shield. If fear rises, smell leaf, remember soil. Steel protects you, garden waits for you, we come back for you."
They answered in whisper chorus: "Forward, forward—until every cage is soil."
Day 123 – 03:30
Final approach, drives wake
He keyed the log:
Day 123 – Polyphemus ahead, upstream names in reach. Cargo: five crew, one hundred twenty voices, infinite reasons. Next burn: insertion, breach, liberation. Margin 5 m/s, margin infinite in leaf and steel. – Karl
He closed the book, pocketed the foil star—now heavier: basil, nutrient square, toy star, Ayla's ribbon, and a new addition—folded paper bearing 600 blank names waiting to be written in green ink.
Outside, the refit yard swelled from dot to wheel, lights blinking polite, unaware that upstream was about to meet downstream—and downstream carried a lance named Bitter, a leaf named Promise, and a count that ended only when every market forgot how to stand.
He pressed the throttle. Drives sang. One voice rose above the hum—one hundred twenty children counting forward with him:
One, two, three… six hundred… infinity—toward the day upstream blood watered downstream gardens.