Cluster

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“We have ascertained that this person is an alien creature occupying a human body,” the Minister of Alien Spheres said formally. “His Kirlian field is extremely intense, on the order of eighty times human normal, and its pattern is unlike anything we have on record. We believe he is what he claims to be: an envoy from a non-Sol Sphere.”

The Ministers of the Imperial Earth Council contemplated the subject. There was little to distinguish the alien. He was male, of normal height, about thirty years old, in good health. There were no telltale emanations from his eyes, extraordinary nuances of expression, or any visible aura. He was just an ordinary man—with a bright tattoo on his right wrist.

That tattoo was the mark of a recipient body: mindless, empty, without personality. Even without the Kirlian verification, the intelligent animation of this body was highly significant. Only a freak accident could have done it—or alien possession. For there was no known way to forge a Kirlian imprint, and Sphere Sol lacked the technology to transfer identity from one body to another.

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