and existence—you want all those because that is what you are, aren't you?"
He drew in a long, aching breath. His eyes coursed tears and his cheeks were wet. And he cursed the wind.
"That's what you are, a big cloud of vapors, atoms, winds from every corner of the earth—the same wind that ripped the Celebes ten years ago, the same pampero that killed in Argentina, the typhoon that fed well in Hawaii, and the hurricane that devastated the coast of Africa last year! You're all of them, part of each, part of those tempests I escaped.
"Only, something happened to give you a start in the direction of alien life. Or maybe the Winds have always been this way; more than hot and cold currents. You want power, like mine. You want intellect. I could do you more good or harm than others, for I know your feeding ground, I know where you are born and where you expire. You don't want death, like other winds. You want life, to get me out of the way because I know.
"I can tell the world of your cruelty, tell them how to parry and defeat you, as I have done in books! But you don't want my preaching any more. You can use me for your own purposes! Incorporate me into your huge cold carcass, give you knowledge, purpose, direction! You want me on your side!"
Colt laughed again, lungs tired and broken from laughing and shouting against the dinning. The house shook like a slipper in a puppy's mouth.
"You'll have to tear the house down bit by bit! And I'll duel you tooth and nail all the way—like I fought you in Ceylon. When I started a forest fire, the one thing that survives and feeds on wind, combatting it. I licked you then, and I'll do it again!"
The house shook once more and the crumbling started.
The front wall bulged in. Glass splintered but did not break. Colt, face swollen from emotion, turned, scrambling for the kitchen.
He dared look once as the kitchen door sealed behind—saw the parlor wall buckle, spew in as if rammed by an artillery shell. The wind stabbed through, howling in triumph.
The kitchen door barely shut before the wind's shoulder was against it. The frail lock could not hold. Colt fought against straining hinges. Giving up, he jerked the cellar door agape, leaped down, bolted it.
Bomber fragments of kitchen door shrapneled everywhere. Gas mains tore loose, spurted gas that blazed into fire.
The upper floor of the house tore away like the simultaneous ripping of ten million yards of muslin.
Colt gritted his teeth, held to the door. Blood ran from his nostrils. He fought idiocy, fought the wind with his mind.
"You can't get me—you can't! I'd hide until you rip the floor up, board by board —then I'll burrow in the ground like an animal and escape! Like I did in Alexandria years ago, like I did in Nairobi! I'll burrow!"
The wind paid no heed. There were voices in it. Voices of the gale, bora and bayamo. Wretched callings, pleadings of the siroccos and tempests. They pleaded with Colt, commanding, telling, urging, ordering him to give himself up.
These were the tongues of ten thousand killed in a typhoon, seven thousand slaughtered by a hurricane, three thousand engulfed by a cyclone. Twisted and tortured and flung from continent to continent on the backs and in the bellies of monsoons and whirlwinds. Wandering in rains and showers, in snows and hails, racked by thunder, pelted by water, fettered and bodiless.
Moulded. Moulded from one million disenthroned spirits into one voice. And
