The Wind On Haven

"The Deserter."

Colin Raveloe, the narrator, is on Haven, a colonized moon of the gas giant, Catseye, where a storm is visible:

"That storm could have swallowed all Haven, or any other world where men can walk. But here I felt only an evening breeze. It was cool, with smells of growth from the farmlands around Fort Kursk." (p. 55)

The storm on the gas giant represents the hostile, mostly uninhabitable, universe whereas the cool breeze smelling of growth represents the habitable enclaves on a few planetary surfaces.

When Raveloe converses with potential enemies, their statements have sinister implications. In one case:

"The implications of that slipped past me at the moment, like a night wind I barely felt." (p. 76)

Wind provides a tactile, but almost subliminal, metaphor.

Later:

"The breeze had sharpened to a wind. It whined and bit." (p. 88)

When the potential for conflict increases, the breeze responds by sharpening into a wind.

"Wind roared, yelled, dashed rain over the canopy till all I could see was lightning." (p. 93)

Raveloe evades hostile surveillance by flying through a squall.

The wind is our constant companion in Poul Anderson's works.