The Cloud Atlas

The plane's propellers were already lazily spinning, but Gurley didn't board. I hung back as well, wondering if this was another invitation-only flight. Gurley asked a crewman nearby if a particular crate of gear had been loaded. The man looked confused; Gurley started yelling. Nothing would be fast enough today. The man left in a trot for the passenger terminal. Gurley followed him at his slower pace, and the two met beside a waist-high box. I was too far away to hear what they were saying, but I could see-anyone could see-that the box was labeled with skull and crossbones. While the crewman loaded the box, Gurley returned. I asked him what was inside. He shook his head and then frowned. The sincere, sympathetic look that followed it was alarming, both for its rarity and for the speed with which it had completely replaced the raw red fury of moments before.

“Sergeant,” he said, and stopped. “I-yes. I have to ask you a question.” He looked nervous, even scared, and he didn't look like he was acting at all. Then he gave a little smile, which made things even worse. He tried again. “And here we are,” he said. “Now then, I have to ask you a question, but it's not really a fair one. The thing is, Sergeant, our war has changed. It may change for everyone, soon, but today, it starts with us. And it starts with me asking if you will volunteer to join me on this flight to Wyoming.”

“Of course,” I interrupted. I couldn't bear Gurley, human. It was disorienting, and oddly frightening. If wild, towering, vengeful Gurley could be spooked, then there could be little hope for the rest of us.

“Hear me out, Sergeant,” Gurley said curtly, almost relieved to be back in the position of scold. “I've been told to formally ask if you will volunteer for this mission because of the hazards involved-”

“A balloon is a balloon, sir,” I said, and then stopped speaking when I saw Gurley's face.

“Inside the crate are gas masks and suits,” Gurley said. “We have word-too damn late word, if you ask me, but no one ever does-that one, or a dozen, or all of the balloons now approaching the United States may carry a new kind of bomb. Not incendiaries. Not antipersonnel. Bacteriological. Germs.”

And I really didn't know what he was talking about. Germ wasn't that scary a word to me then. Germs gave you colds. That's why people covered their noses when they sneezed. I would eventually learn just how naïve I was, but before Gurley explained anything else, he first had to get me aboard the plane.

“This information is so new that-we-well, they're not sure if the gear we have is really, you know, up to the task. We just don't know. So I'm supposed to ask if, knowing the risks, which you really don't, you'll volunteer to go. And I'm supposed to let you stay behind if you want.” He took a step toward the plane. “But I can't really do that, Belk, you know why?”

The officer defuses the bomb. I looked at him a moment. “Because you need help with-? Because I will, sir,” I said. “Even though I didn't really train for-”

Gurley smiled. “Yes, Belk,” he said. “I need you for that. But I also need you for the simple reason that, when the question was asked of the NCOs present at the meeting I flew to yesterday-well, there were no volunteers.”

“Sir,” I began.

“Good man,” Gurley said, his actor's smile and flourish returning as he swung himself aboard.

GURLEY GAVE ME MORE background on the flight. The supposedly weeklong meeting he'd been summoned to in Juneau during my Shuyak convalescence had been cut short when word of the Wyoming balloon arrived.

At first, he tried to summarize the briefing he'd received, but I interrupted him with so many questions that he finally gave up and handed his top secret briefing packet to me. He put a finger to his lips, as if to say “shh,” and then raised his thumb. He didn't have to draw it across my throat, or his. I began reading.

Evidence of Japan 's germ weapons program was arriving from an increasing number of credible sources, the report said, even as the information relayed was becoming increasingly incredible. A highly specialized and extremely secretive Japanese army medical corps named Unit 731 had set up shop-factories, really-in Manchuria, where they were conducting horrifying experiments on local peasants, as well as whomever else they might come upon-White Russians, Koreans, Gypsies, missionaries. Men's chests were split open and their organs removed while they were still alive. Limbs of men, women, even infants were frozen, then beaten or thawed and refrozen to examine the process of frostbite.

The authors of Gurley's report, however, were not worried about frostbite.