Spawn of the Winds Read Online Free PDF Page B

pretty bad mess, and I admit that I’m mainly to blame. Things happened a lot too fast for me; but that’s no excuse, or at best a lame one. Up to now this has been a pretty messed-up job. And again, well, I suppose the fault is mine; I know it’s mine. So if you’re starting to feel that it’s high time we voted in a new chief, then—”
    â€œYou’re joking, Hank!” Whitey’s naturally mournful voice cut me off in mid-sentence, his eyebrows seeming to droop from the center where they met over his nose as he frowned.
    â€œNo way,” Jimmy agreed with Whitey, shaking his head, dark eyes bright in his bronze face. “You got us into this, you get us out.”
    They were both smiling now, albeit lopsidedly. Whitey continued, “I’m a hunchman, Hank, and it’s my bet that you’ll boss this show no matter what anyone else decides. Anyway, we’re all equally to blame for what’s happened.”
    â€œAll right.” I told them, relieved that they were still with me, “but that’s something else we need to decide; just exactly what has happened. I don’t know if you were listening to Tracy while she was going on about all she saw, her experiences since the Big Fellow grabbed us?”
    â€œI was listening,” Whitey answered, his eyebrows drooping again.
    Jimmy nodded grimly. “Sounded to me like Tracy believes we’re no longer on Earth.”
    â€œYes, that’s what it sounded like,” I agreed. “But we’ll talk about that in a minute. First I want to clear up this thing with the star-stones.”

    â€œConfession,” Jimmy sheepishly offered. “I forgot to bring mine.”
    â€œI wouldn’t feel too bad about it,” I told him. “I forgot mine, too. If it weren’t for Tracy we’d only have the one—Whitey’s. And I have a feeling that we didn’t simply ‘forget’ them, either. No, it wasn’t bravado but something else. The Wind-Walker is telepathic; if anyone knows that I do. If I’m right, then it’s an even bet he’s known about us all along, probably right from the moment Peaslee decided we should have a go at him. I think he’s been applying subtle telepathic pressures that have gone completely undetected. I can show you evidence for what I say. Here’s Whitey, a strong-willed man. He brings along his stone but then doesn’t wear it. Then I conveniently ‘forget’ my stone. You, Jimmy, and poor Dick—you don’t bother with your stones at all! Oh, yes, I guess we can be truly thankful for Tracy. She’s thrown one hell of a monkeywrench right in Ithaqua’s works.”
    â€œAnd my star-stone really burned you?” Whitey asked, confirming more than questioning the fact.
    â€œWould you like to go and ask Tracy to let you have it back?” I said. “Perhaps wear it round your neck?” I showed him my blistered hand.
    â€œI’ll take your word for it. But how?”
    Here Jimmy cut in. “I think I know. When Ithaqua grabbed the plane we were unprotected, all of us except Tracy. I must have read everything you ever put together, Hank, on Ithaqua. Don’t know of a single case where he was involved when there wasn’t some mention of this tremendous drop in body temperature. He—he changes people!”
    â€œRight,” I put in. “He brings them under his influence, subtly alters them, imbues them, I believe, with something of his own aura, which he radiates as intense cold.”
    Jimmy chewed his lip. “Isn’t that a whole lot of guesswork, Hank?”
    â€œNot really,” I answered. “The star-stone burned me, didn’t it? Just like I was Ithaqua myself, or one of his minions.”
    â€œAre you saying that we are—his?”
    â€œNot necessarily. You’ve read the case histories. There was that woman, Lucille Bridgeman. She certainly