The man rolled his pale eyes briefly skyward in a feminine gesture. “What color tunic would you prefer? Anything except black.”
“Why not black?”
“That signifies officialdom.”
Flint disliked officialdom. “I’m happy the way I am.”
Now an evanescent smile. “That simply won’t do. You’re no Tarot figure.”
“Tarow people are naked?”
“That’s Tarot, with an unpronounced terminal T. Merely illustrations on occult cards used by the cult of Tarotism. Its prime tenet is that all concepts of God are valid.”
“Aren’t they?”
Again the rolling of eyes. “You’re to meet the Council of Ministers in fifteen minutes. You must be dressed.”
Flint realized that argument would only delay his return home. “Give me a green one, then. I’m a green man.”
“Very good,” the white man said distastefully. He produced a green tunic that came reasonably close to matching Flint’s skin, and Flint put it on over his head. He balked at using the silk undergarment the man tried to make him wear under it, however. A dress was bad enough, but no warrior or craftsman wore panties! Suppose he needed to urinate in a hurry?
A woman—a real one this time, with breasts and hips and hair, though dressed just like the man—came and slicked down his proudly unruly hair, washed his hands and feet, and trimmed off the better part of his strong finger- and toenails. She was, despite her pale skin, an attractive female with a musky odor and a deft touch; otherwise he would not have submitted to these indignities. He hoped he would not have to fight soon; his hands were now as embarrassingly dainty as Honeybloom’s.
He was ushered into a capsule that closed about him and abruptly plunged through the wall. He had a confused glimpse of buildings like straight vertical cliffs, and crowds of robed people. Up above the sky was blue, not green, and the light of the sun was sickeningly yellowish. This was Imp Earth, all right! Then the capsule penetrated another wall like a spearpoint through hide, and stopped inside.
A bit dizzy, Flint got out.
A man stepped up to grasp his hand. Flint was tempted to grab that flabby hand and throw the bastard over his shoulder, but restrained himself. It was better to ascertain the facts before acting, as the Shaman always reminded him. Then he could throw a few Imps about.
“Welcome, Flint of Outworld. I am the Minister of Population. It was our excellent aura-intensity files that located you. The Council is ready for you now.”
“Ugh,” Flint grunted noncommittally. He followed the man through bare halls like the base of an overgrown vine forest. He felt confined, his vision, hearing, and smell restricted to the point of uselessness; surely this was one of the fabled Earth prisons. He kept a nervous eye out for predators, though he knew that the larger dinosaurs had died out on Earth.
The Council of Ministers was a group of undistinguished men in identical black tunics. Their faces and hands were bone-white, except for one brown man. They introduced themselves in rapid order, though they hardly seemed sufficiently distinct from each other to warrant names. Flint made disinterested note in case there were ever any future relevance. He had a perfect memory for such details; it came of practice in hunting and scouting. The Shaman called it “eidetic.”
“I’ll come straight to the point,” the brown man said. He was the Regent, and seemed to have more character than the others. “You have a high Kirlian aura—er, do you know what that is?”
“No.” This was something the Shaman had not mentioned, unless it was the Imp name for intelligence. Keer-lee-an aura?
“Very well,” the man said, with a grimace that showed it was not very well. “I’ll explain. It is a kind of a field of force associated with living things, like a magnetic field—do you know what that is?”
“No.” Actually the Shaman had mentioned magnetism, but Flint was not in a good mood.
“Complete savage,” one of the Ministers murmured in a comment he evidently thought Flint could not overhear. The man did not realize that a complete savage would have acute hearing for wilderness survival. Flint was proud of his primitive heritage, though he realized the Minister had intended the remark disparagingly. Well, toss one more Imp—in due course.
“Hm, yes,” the Regent said. “Well, some four or five hundred years ago, when Earth was just emerging into the space age, the twentieth century, you know, scientists discovered that there were phenomena that could not be explained by conventional means. ESP, PSI, dowsing, precognition—fascinating concepts in their time—”
One of the Ministers cleared his throat, and Flint realized why they liked to be so similar: it was difficult to tell which one had interrupted the discussion.
The Regent frowned and continued. “At any rate, it was obvious that force fields of an unknown nature existed. In 1939 a Soviet electrician—uh, the Soviets were a nation, somewhat like a stellar system except they were right here on Earth—called Semyon Davidovich Kirlian photographed the patterns of bioluminescence—that is, a glow from living things—that appeared in certain high-frequency electrical fields. This effect resembled a fireworks display, with multicolored flares, sparks, twinkles, glows, and lines. In fact, a Kirlian photograph of a living human hand resembled the image of our galaxy with all its stars and clusters and swirls of dust and gas. And so this discovery—”
“Really, our guest isn’t interested in this detail,” the Minister of Population interjected.
The truth was, Flint was interested. A human hand that had fields of energy like the galaxy? But if he revealed how much he understood, he would spoil his image of barbaric ignorance, so he kept silent.
“My point,” the Regent continued, “is that this was the start of what was to become the major science of bioluminescence. It has had profound effects on medicine, agriculture, criminology, archaeology, and other sciences, because every living thing has its Kirlian aura, whose pattern is unique to it and varies with its health and mood and experience. Some even call this aura the astral body or the soul. There are religious implications—”
Again the anonymous clearing of a throat.
“Well, the Kirlian aura is now subject to precise measurement. It varies in intensity and detail with different individuals. Some have weak fields, some strong fields. Most are average. You happen to have a very strong field. This means you would be a good subject for transfer of identity to another body, for where your Kirlian aura goes, you go—because your aura is your essence.”
Suddenly Flint caught the man’s drift. “Like mattermission—to someone else’s body!”
“To someone else’s body and brain—but you retain your own personality and memories, because they are inherent in your aura. As you change, it changes, reflecting your growth. Your aura is you. In this case, it goes to something else’s body. You are about to have the magnificent adventure of traveling to the stars.”
The notion had its appeal. Flint was intrigued by the stars, and all the stories connected with them. But he remained angry. “I just traveled from a star—and I want to go back.”
“But this is a signal honor. No human being has done this before. You will be an extraordinary envoy to alien Spheres—”