The Cloud Atlas

I thought this morning, when I entered and shouted, “Good morning!” that Ronnie flinched, or raised an eyebrow, but the nurse who was already there saw nothing. I sat with him awhile, and then checked the ward for Friday's new arrivals.

I eventually returned, greeted Ronnie again-nothing-and sat. I opened my breviary and tried to read, but could not. Ronnie wasn't flinching, but I was, every time the high hum of another plane finally grew loud enough to reach my hearing. Thursday's weather had cleared, and long-delayed planes were pouring into Bethel. The bishop, or his emissaries, weren't due in until late this afternoon, but perhaps they'd decided to play it safe and catch an early flight. Perhaps they'd decided not to come at all.

Could they really take me away from all this? Kidnapping is what it would be. Murder. I can't breathe Outside. Some attic apartment in a Seattle rectory? A room, way at the end of the hall of some Gonzaga dormitory, in Spokane? No weather or shamans or wilderness to battle? I'd suffocate.

I imagine these men landing, the plane's door popping open, and them peering out. I imagine them clambering down the steps and crossing the tarmac to the terminal. Inside, they'd look around for me with false but energetic smiles. (As though I would go to meet them, even if Ronnie didn't need me at his side!) There was a pay phone there that sometimes worked; maybe they'd use it to call the church. Maybe they'd ask around. Maybe they would sit, and as the waiting area emptied, discuss what they planned to do.

I tried not to worry. I'd been gone for the night; Ronnie had gone without the sound of my voice. (But how far?) I studied him carefully, and then, after ducking into the hallway to make sure no one was around, went back to the bed and raised the sheet. I wasn't sure what I would find, whether I'd be pleased or frightened to discover that another limb had fallen prey to something as invisible as it was ravenous.

THE AIRPORT TERMINAL at Bethel today is a sturdy, modern building, where the signs are all bilingual-“EXIT/ANYARAO”-and the atmosphere is informal. The male and female restrooms (“ANARVIK”) share the same bank of sinks, and those sinks are located in an alcove that's wide open to the waiting room. Look in the mirror, and you can see everyone in the waiting room looking back.

Back at Elmendorf, back in the war, the airfield terminal was even more intimate, if that's the right word. The building had but one window, and that was almost always covered with a giant chalkboard listing the day's flights.

I remember searching the chalkboard the morning after Gurley had ordered me to the post on Little Diomede. To attract as little attention as possible to my supposedly top secret mission, I was to travel as far as I could on regularly scheduled flights. That meant I had to make my way first to Nome, and then determine the most efficient and least attention-getting means-sea or air-of continuing on to Little Diomede.

I'd already missed the 0600 flight to Nome. I'd not made it out of the forest until about eight-thirty. I'd spent some time looking for Lily time I should have spent lowering the balloon to the ground and rendering its payload safe. Instead, when I found my way back to the mysterious crash site she'd led me to, I found it ablaze. The incendiary bombs had fallen to the forest floor and ignited. The balloon itself, still trapped in the tree, had caught fire as well, and as I stood watching, the tree sloughed it off to the ground, a fiery scab. I thought the incendiaries meant it was unlikely germ weapons had been aboard-and if they had, they'd likely been incinerated.

Even so, I held my breath as much as I could as I ran for the river, expecting the fire or a belated blast to take me down before I'd made twenty yards. But twenty, fifty, one hundred yards went by, and I was still upright and running, ricocheting through the spruce down to the river. If anything exploded, the noise was lost to the rapids, which I followed back down to the trail, and then the trail into Anchorage. Instead of dissipating, the smell of smoke had only grown stronger the farther I had run. And once I was running along the city streets, I could see why-a great column of smoke now rose from the forest.

I didn't stop running until a hungover soldier, sprawled on the sidewalk, called out to me, “Didn't have enough money to pay 'er?” Then I realized I'd attract less attention on the nearly empty streets if I walked, and so I did, straight to the Starhope. Lily had to have escaped the forest before me. But the front door was locked. Lily's window was dark, and no one came to it when I called, not even Gurley