Spawn of the Winds Read Free Page A

question. Quite casually, he stopped me to ask if Hank Silberhutte had ever been an astronaut.
    I might normally have laughed but was in no mood. Instead I told him curtly that no, Silberhutte had never been an astronaut—what was this, some sort of macabre riddle? He answered in these words, which I will always remember:
    â€œNo riddle, Professor, and no offense intended but after all I am a hunchman. And I’ll tell you something; I’d bet a month’s salary that it is Hank Silberhutte who’s trying to contact Miss Alvarez. And one other thing wherever he’s transmitting from, it’s no part of this Earth!”
    On the morning of June 3 Juanita began picking up a very clear telepathic transmission. The following narrative, relayed through her mind from incredible and unknown voids of space and time, was recorded exactly as she received it.

Part One
    I
    Winds of the Void
    (Recorded through the Medium of Juanita Alvarez)
    Â 
    I’m sorry about that, Juanita, I realize now that it must have given you a terrific jolt to receive what must have seemed like messages from a dead man. But I’ve been trying to reach you ever since we got here three months ago, and—
    You say it’s been four months? Well, that tells me something; it took us a month to get here. And during that month we were all dead to the world except for Tracy, who had the stone, and of course poor Dick Selway, the pilot. He was just … dead. I’m not being callous, Juanita, but it’s been three pretty hellish months for us, one way or another, and we’ve seen enough of death in that time to—
    We? Yes, Tracy, Jimmy Franklin, Paul White and myself. All right, I’ll go right back to square one for you, Juanita—back to where I cut you off when I thought that Ithaqua was going to flatten the plane against that mountain … .
    Â 
    Oh, I knew we were done for, no doubt about it. And that damned … Thin! He was massive enough when we first spotted him—shapeless, writhing like disturbed smoke, big as a building—but when he has a mind to he can simply, well, expand . He was just starting to puff himself up when be caught hold of the plane with a hand black as night, five-fingered but like a bird’s claw, with talons instead of fingers, and his strength was unbelievable.
    I thought he intended to crush us; I actually saw the inner wall of
the fuselage starting to buckle as he tightened his grip. But then he lifted us up into the sky, way up above those clouds, and for an instant he paused in that position. Juanita, I admit that when he did that I just closed my eyes, gritted my teeth and prayed. And I’m not a man that prays too often.
    That was when Tracy grabbed me. Scared to death, all tears and snuffles, just like when she was a little kid sister. She threw her arms around my neck, and I felt the star-stone pressed between us.
    I hadn’t realized it but the thing outside the plane must have been listening and watching inside my head. He pounced on the picture of that star-stone right there in my mind, stared for a split second—then threw it straight back, withdrawing his mind from mine completely. Only after he had gone was I sure he’d ever been there.
    Now, I suppose you caught his thoughts when he was—laughing?—just before he grabbed the plane? Well, I’ve since learned that his mind-talk can only be picked up when he’s really angry or, yes, frightened. Even then, though, his thoughts can’t positively be interpreted. But still I somehow knew that when the great beast saw the star-stone in my mind it had shocked him rigid, frightened him. And it had made him angry!
    He was snarling and mewling in a frenzy of frustration and rage. I guessed right away then that he couldn’t hurt us, not directly at any rate, and for the first time since I joined the Foundation I really appreciated the power of the five-pointed stars. Think of