This could well be the moment of the century.

“I am Pnotl of Sphere Knyfh,” the alien said. “We are about five thousand of your light-years in toward the center of the galaxy. Our two Spheres have not before had direct contact.”

The Council Ministers nodded. They had only vague knowledge of the interior Spheres, most of whose stars of origin were not visible from Earth. But it was certain that many of them were highly advanced. In fact, Sol was a very new, very minor Sphere, a galactic backwater only now opening relations with its civilized contemporaries. Some Spheres had endured for thousands of years, and achieved radii of many hundreds of light-years, while Sol had achieved its full size only a century before.

“We place your locale,” the Regent said. “Please continue, Envoy of Knyfh.”

“I am embodied here to enlist the cooperation of Sphere Sol in a mutual crisis of galactic proportion. I ask you, at this moment, to ascertain which individuals of your sapient species are suitable for identity-pattern transfer.”

“That is not necessary,” the Minister of Alien Spheres said. “We maintain continuous survey. After the difficulty the first envoy had in making contact with our government, five hundred years ago—”

“That was not the first,” Pnotl said dryly.

“The first we recognized,” the Regent said, flushing. Historical research had revealed the probability of several prior attempts at transfer contact. All had failed because earlier cultures had preferred not to believe in the possibility of intelligent alien visitation or possession. What chances had been squandered by that ignorance!