Cloud Atlas: Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

Zachry Bailey, the narrator, is a Valleysman on Big Isle who speaks English with a heavy dialect. One day, Adam Bailey (his brother) and Pa Bailey are walking back from the market and pitch a tent near Sloosha’s Crossin’. Zachry walks away from the tent and imagines he hears the voice of Old Georgie, an evil spirit, calling out to him. Old Georgie escapes through the trees. Zachry goes back to find Pa and Adam. But instead, Zachry finds about a dozen Kona men, who come from a rival tribe.

The Kona notice Zachry and he flees. He manages to escape, but the Kona circle the camp where Adam Bailey and Pa are. Adam and Pa resist, but one of the Kona slashes Pa’s throat. Adam is so shocked he stops fighting, and the Kona tie him up to take him away. Zachry feels awful and thinks that the god Sonmi ought to kill him for being so cowardly. He builds a burial mound for his father.

Zachry believes that being able to talk to goats well is a gift. Years after the death of Pa, Zachry becomes a goat herder. At age 12, he has his first baby (that he knows of) with a girl named Jayjo. But the baby comes out premature and can’t breathe, so it dies. Jayjo herself looks pale but manages to survive.

In Zachry’s valley, there’s only one god: Sonmi. Other nearby tribes have more gods, some of them including Sonmi and others not. Valleysmen try to behave in a civilized manner, because they believe if they act too “savage,” Old Georgie will take their soul. There’s a place called the Icon’ry where people go to pray to Sonmi—Zachry went there with Pa and Adam once when Ma Bailey was sick, and Sonmi showed mercy on Ma.

There’s a room at the “school’ry” that contains books that supposedly contain the mysteries of the “Civ’lize Days.” The windows of the school’ry remain intact, even after “the Fall.” Perhaps the most interesting room at the school’ry is the still-working clock, which seems like it must have been very important to people in the Civ’lize Days.

Zachry talks about the Great Ship o’ the Prescients, which some dismiss as a myth. One day, a big ship that looks like it came from Civ’lize Days shows up in water near the Valleysmen. The people on board the ship are a race called the Prescients. They speak in a strange way and come to barter with the Valleysmen, taking food and giving back impressive ironware, although the Prescients never barter anything “Smarter” than what the people on Big Isle are used to. The Prescients also never speak of what lies beyond the ocean.

When Zachry is 16, a Prescient named Meronym visits Zachry’s house and changes his life forever. One evening, Zachry is herding his goats home. When he arrives, he hears that the Prescient chief wants to speak with a local leader called the Abbess of the Valleysmen. The Prescient chief wants a special bartering session that year: If one Prescient woman is allowed to live with the Valleysmen for a year, the Prescients will pay them double for their goods. Since the death of Pa, Ma and Zachry have empty space to host Meronym.

Meronym fascinates the Valleysmen with her talk of ships that run on fusion engines, although they don’t understand her. She answers their questions, explaining that all Prescients are Black because at one point in the past, they altered the genomes of their children to give them protection against sunburns, and now it’s passed on genetically. She reveals that she’s married with a son, but her husband got murdered by “savages.” She is 50 years old, which amazes the Valleysmen, who rarely make it past 40.

Meronym proves to be a good worker, helping with the cows. At night she keeps a journal. While most Valleysmen like Meronym, Zachry wonders if the journal means she is secretly some kind of spy whom Old Georgie sent. Days pass, and Meronym travels the Valleys meeting more people, making maps and learning about the different tribes. She agrees to teach math at the school’ry. Zachry’s suspicion grows particularly intense when he sees Meronym in the sacred Icon’ry. He accuses Meronym of trying to make the Abbess of the Valleysmen and his Ma look stupid. Meronym swears on Sonmi that she means no harm, but Zachry thinks she doesn’t actually believe in Sonmi.

Zachry takes his concerns about Meronym to the Abbess of the Valleysmen, but she requests proof that something’s wrong with Meronym. Zachry sneaks around and finds where Meronym has stashed her possessions. He finds a lot of objects he doesn’t understand, including an egg-shaped device that contains a recording of a man asking a woman questions (the Archivist and Sonmi). All of a sudden, a man’s face appears on the egg-shaped device and asks where Meronym is. The man tells Zachry to put the egg away and never again sneak into Meronym’s gear.

Zachry decides to act nicer toward Meronym so he can spy on her better. One morning, Zachry’s sister Catkin Bailey steps on a scorpionfish and gets mortally poisoned. Zachry runs to ask Meronym about a cure, but she protests that the usual Big Isle cures are best for Big Isle people. Zachry gets angry and says he knows Meronym must have cures for her own people. In reply, Meronym reveals she knows Zachry was snooping through her things. Meronym says Catkin would’ve stepped on the fish whether Meronym was there or not, since that was just the natural order.

Zachry keeps trying to convince Meronym, telling the story of how he watched Kona murder his father. At last, Meronym agrees to give Zachry something to cure Catkin, but she makes Zachry swear that he’ll keep it a secret and give credit to the local herbalist. Three days later, Catkin is fully healed. Zachry decides to stop spying on Meronym.

Meronym tells Ma she has to climb a nearby mountain to make a map, and she has “Smart” (what the Valleysmen call advanced technology that they don’t understand) that will stop Old Georgie from freezing her on the way up. The Valleysmen know the mountain as a dangerous place, and Meronym’s trip attracts interest. To pay back Meronym for healing Catkin, Zachry agrees to assist Meronym on her journey.

As Meronym and Zachry make it up the mountain, they pass Sloosha’s Crossin’ and suddenly jump off the road to avoid being seen by three Kona warriors. Zachry imagines the one Kona boy might be Adam, but he always thinks this when he sees a Kona boy who would be the right age.

The next day, Meronym and Zachry stop to drink at a brook. Zachry says he thinks Meronym doesn’t believe in Old Georgie, who caused the Fall. Meronym confirms she doesn’t but says that doesn’t mean Old Georgie can’t be real for Zachry. She says the Old Uns didn’t need Old Georgie to make them Fall—they did it to themselves, even with their Smart. With all the Old Uns had, it still wasn’t enough, and they boiled the sea and poisoned the earth.

More days pass, and Meronym continues to tell Zachry more surprising truths about the world. At last, they make it to the top of the mountain, where the winds are intense. Both Meronym and Zachry stand in awe of the view. Zachry feels like the wind is bringing him the voice of his grandfather.

Near the top of the mountain, Meronym and Zachry enter an observatory from before the Fall that is full of old Smart. Inside, Meronym pulls out her egg-like devise and explains that it’s an “orison” with multiple purposes, including preserving memories. Meronym asks about the woman he saw in the orison earlier. Meronym says the woman is dead and just a memory. After some hesitation, Meronym reveals that the woman is Sonmi, the same human that the Valleysmen believe is a god.

Zachry is shocked to learn Sonmi was human, since he always learned that she was born from a god of Smart named Darwin. Meronym explains that hundreds of years ago, the Old Uns who feared Sonmi put her to death. As Meronym and Zachry leave to find other similar observatories, Zachry wonders if he was right earlier to distrust Meronym, since she’s trying to change all his beliefs. He suspects Meronym still isn’t being fully honest with him. In one of the observatories, they find the surprisingly well-preserved body of a chief astronomer who apparently died by suicide after the Fall. Zachry imagines he hears the astronomer’s body calling out to him, telling him to kill the outsider Meronym, but Zachry has no desire to become a murderer.

Zachry throws a spear but intentionally misses Meronym. She doesn’t notice that Zachry threw it. Zachry hears Old Georgie getting angry at him. Old Georgie wants him to try killing Meronym for real, threatening that otherwise, Zachry’s whole family will die. But after being briefly tempted, Zachry believes Meronym will stay loyal to the Valleysmen. They head back home. Zachry finds that he’s a changed person after everything Meronym told him, particularly about Sonmi.

More time passes, and Meronym comes to her last evening with the Valleysmen. The Valleysmen prepare for their annual barter, preparing to travel with more people than usual, since they have more goods to trade than usual (due to accepting Meronym). As they travel to the site of the barter, one of the Valleysmen asks Meronym to tell them a Prescient story. She hesitates then agrees.

Meronym starts her story: Back during the Fall, humans forgot how to make fire. The humans went to see Wise Man and ask him about fire, so Wise Man sent out the Crow, telling him to dip part of a long stick into a volcano and come back. The Crow does what it’s told, but on the way back, the burning stick begins to hurt it. The story ends while the Crow is still flying, before it either drops the stick or doesn’t and leaves open a question: Do humans remember the invention of fire or not? Meronym says the story isn’t about fire, it’s about how humanity got its spirit.

The Valleysmen make it to the village where bartering takes place, and the trades go well. Night falls, and they draw lots for keeping watch. After Zachry serves his sentry duty, he takes Meronym over to where people play music and dance with the other tribes. In the morning, Zachry wakes up next to a girl from the Kolekole tribe that he was dancing with the previous night. When he goes back to his people, however, he finds a dead guard with a crossbolt through his neck. Zachry runs to warn everyone that the Kona have come, but it’s too late. As the Kona surround the area, Zachry gets pushed down and hits his head.

Zachry wakes up in pain. He’s on a cart and figures that, like his brother Adam before him, the Kona have enslaved him. He asks the other prisoners if any of them are awake, but a Kona tells him to shut up or die. Zachry prays to Sonmi. They travel farther, then they stop. The Kona chief addresses the prisoners, who are all young men from different tribes, telling them that are slaves who must follow their masters’ orders or risk death.

That night, the Kona feast on chicken and liquor without giving anything to the prisoners. Eventually, they decide to give some chicken and alcohol to one young prisoner.  Zachry is jealous at first—but then the Kona start raping the boy. Just then, a red spot appears on the forehead of one of the Kona, and he falls over. A different Kona in a helmet comes over and shoots two more Kona. The remaining Kona fight back, but soon, the helmeted Kona has killed them all. When the stranger takes off their helmet, it turns out it’s not a Kona at all but Meronym.

Meronym and Zachry untie the other captives. She tells Zachry about how she wasn’t in the village when the Kona attacked since she was out sketching the sea. When she got back and saw the attack, she found a helmet and a horse from a dead Kona that she used as a disguise. When she saw the cart with Zachry, she followed it, then waited until nightfall to attack.

Zachry rests overnight in a building of the Old Uns. The next day, he wakes to Meronym talking into her orison. When Meronym notices that Zachry is awake, the Prescient on the other end of the orison, Duophysite, tells Zachry that he’ll have to lead Meronym on a journey to a place called Ikat’s Finger, where Duophysite will meet them. It turns out the Prescients on the ship have stopped responding to messages, so the ship probably isn’t coming. Duophysite explains that there’s a deadly plague that even the Prescients’ Smart can’t cure.

Duophysite decides it’s time to tell Zachry the whole truth. According to Duophysite, there are just five Prescients with him in Hah-Way (Hawaii), one on each island. They’ve long feared that the plague would wipe out the last of Civ’lize, and so they’ve been looking for new places to settle. Meronym’s job was to scope out the island for this purpose. Zachry wants to help, but he says he needs to try to find his family first.

Zachry and Meronym stay in the Old Un ruin one more night for Zachry to recover. The next day, Meronym teaches Zachry how to fire her modern weapons. Zachry asks Meronym how she learned to ride horses as well as the Kona, and she says most Prescients don’t, but she spent some time earlier with a different tribe called the Swannekke. They journey for a while, until they reach an encampment of Kona with 34 enslaved Valleysmen. There are far too many Kona to kill, so a reluctant Zachry tells Meronym to retreat.

Zachry can’t escape his guilt as he imagines what might be happening to his family under the Kona. Meronym warns Zachry that, while he faces a difficult decision about what to do next, the Kona will catch them if they stick around. Zachry goes back to his family’s place to pick up some things, but while there alone, he happens to find a young Kona man who is supposed to be standing guard but who has fallen asleep. He is about the age Adam would be, but Old Georgie wants Zachry to slit the guard’s exposed throat. Zachry hesitates, not wanting to listen to Old Georgie, but in the end, he decides to slash the guard’s throat instead of sneaking away.

When Zachry makes it back to Meronym, she warns him about Kona in the area. They ride off quickly. Zachry confesses to Meronym that he killed the sleeping Kona. Meronym says Prescients don’t believe in souls, so when you die, you die. Zachry finds this cold and frightening. He wonders if the triumph of the Kona over the Valleysmen and Prescients is proof that it’s better to be “savage” than “Civ’lized.” Meronym says it’s complicated and that both sides have advantages, plus some rare savages actually have Civ’lized in their hearts. As Meronym sleeps that night, Zachry notices that near her shoulder blade she has a birthmark that looks like a hand with six streaks coming off it (a comet).

Zachry and Meronym keep going. They face a choice of leaving behind their horses to go one way or keeping their horses to take a faster way where there’s a greater risk of encountering Kona. They feel that time is running short, so they take the faster, more dangerous way. Just as they arrive at Ikat’s Finger, several Kona sentries pop out with weapons and ask them for a password. Fortunately, Meronym has her Kona helmet on, although it’s unusual for a Valleysman like Zachry to be riding a Kona horse.

Meronym gets indignant and shouts at the Kona sentries to let her do what she wants. The Kona turn around to report the news, giving Meronym and Zachry a chance to shoot them. Then they gallop off on their horses. As they try to escape, Zachry gets hit in the left calf by a crossbow. Meronym says they have to get to a safe area first before she can treat the wound. As they approach a bridge, Zachry warns Meronym that Sonmi has told him not to try crossing it. Meronym seems skeptical, but she agrees to follow Zachry to where the river is shallow enough for their horses to cross it. Later, in the distance, they hear the bridge collapse under several Kona horsemen, who fall into the dangerous, rocky river below.

Meronym and Zachry finally make it safely to Ikat’s Finger. Meronym pulls the crossbow bolt out of Zachry’s leg and uses some Smart on the wound. She stays with Zachry until Duophysite arrives by kayak. Zachry is in a daze due to his injury, but Meronym takes Zachry with her as they leave Big Isle with Duophysite. Zachry watches the island where he spent his whole life shrink on the horizon until it’s small enough to fit between his finger and thumb.

A new narrator says that his Pa, Zachry, was weird. Zachry believed Meronym was Sonmi herself because of the comet birthmark. Zachry’s son isn’t sure how much of his father’s old stories about the Kona and escaping Big Isle are true, but after Zachry died, his son found an egglike orison in his belongings. The orison can’t help him kill Kona pirates, but it does still hold a beautiful woman who talks in an old language.