The Cloud Atlas

The boy was dying, Gurley said, building his case. What was wanted was mercy, not agony, not for anyone. Now, he couldn't put a gun to the boy's head, Gurley explained. He wasn't a barbarian. And he couldn't ask me to do it: I wasn't enough of a soldier. (He didn't even pause to smirk.) No, things had to proceed according to the natural order of things, which was this: whoever had put the boy in that balloon (“A stowaway?” I asked, merely to have some way to counter him, but Gurley rolled his eyes) had intended for him to die in the ensuing explosion. When the balloon crashed, it should have exploded. He should have died. Our presence had upset this plan; we could give fate its due by placing the boy back at the crash site, and then detonating the balloon. This was not about the army, or war, or anything else. It was about predestination. The divine order of things. We had the equipment, which was simple enough. C3, blasting wire, a little hell box. Put the boy in position, affix the explosives, run the wire, retreat to safety, depress the plunger, and-

“Lily?” I asked.

Gurley spun around, then turned back to me, relieved. We'd reached the boat. “I thought you meant she was here.”

“No,” I said, taking a quick look for her myself. “But she'll hear the blast.”

Gurley nodded and exhaled and said nothing for a while.

When he started speaking again, his voice had changed. Just slightly, but the effect was startling. “It's too much,” he said. “It's too much to ask her, too, to die-of simple heartache,” he added. “Not over me, of course,” he said, his face tight with disdain. “But dear Saburo.” I stared. “Rapist and rival, and spy.” He waited, clearly looking for a sign in me that I understood what he meant and did not need him to go on. But whatever he saw wasn't enough, so he continued. “As you must know, hormone-besotted as you are, Fair Belk, Miss Lily has become a… difficulty, yes. 'Tis true?”

“Sir,” I said, and stopped. “My-my God-”

“Yes,” Gurley said. “Your God. Does not smile down upon this part of the world. No, tremble not, Sergeant. As convenient as it would be if Lily, too, lay beside the boy, beside the balloon, only to disappear with the rest of the mess, it is a trifle inconvenient as well,” he admitted. “Morally.”

“She-loves you,” I said. It was all I could think of to say. “She told me.”

Gurley looked at me. First his face said: a lie. Then it said: how sweet if it were true. And then he spoke. “Well, Sergeant,” he said. “You see our dilemma.”

I COULD HAVE REFUSED to set the charge against the balloon. Refused to unspool the wire, refused to attach it to the hell box. I could have refused to knife the wall of the tent where the boy and Lily lay, refused to snatch the boy through the gash-his screams instant, inhuman-and sprint for the crash site while Gurley wrestled with Lily quieting her with the force of his words and, when that didn't work, force alone. I could have refused to set the boy in the place Gurley had designated within the balloon's wreckage. I could have refused to bind the boy's arms and legs to the control frame just as Gurley insisted he would tie Lily to the boat, or to stakes in the ground, or to whatever he had to in order to keep her from following us back to the balloon.

But I did as I was told, and, with Lily's plea still echoing, a little bit more. When Gurley and I met, however-me walking back from the balloon site and him walking toward it-I realized, too late, that I could have done better.

He looked furious, on the point of weeping. He didn't break his stride nor even turn to look at me as he spoke: “Change of plans, Sergeant.” I think my heart stopped beating. I certainly stopped walking, and turned to watch him lurch through the swampy tundra toward the balloon.

He had killed Lily. I had failed her, utterly. And now what: Was I supposed to chase after him? Leap on him, press his face into the nearest puddle and drown him? Or race to where Lily lay, apologize to whatever life of her still remained?

I ran to Lily. There'd be time enough to deal with Gurley But Saburo, Jap Sam, the girl who died in childbirth at her boarding school-all the seeing spirits might all be drawing Lily into the clouds, even now.

I said prayers as I ran. Ones I knew by heart and others I made up. Whatever I said, though, it must have been powerful. Because when I reached the camp, I found Lily, alive and upright, packing our supplies onto the boat.

“Lily,” I cried. I went to hug her, but something about the way she looked at me stopped me short.

“Where's Gurley?” she said. I was anxious to explain away my role in hustling the boy away from camp, to mention how I needed to do so in order for the rest of the plan to work, but Lily wasn't interested. “Where is he?” she asked again, nervous now.