"Caro Amigo da Pena" "Carta das Estrelas", um conto de A. E. van Vogt , publicado pela primeira vez em The Arkham Sampler Inverno de 1949 ; a reimpressão em Nebula Science Fiction , número 1, outubro de 1952 é disponível no Internet Archive . Esta história popular surgiu antes neste site, aqui e aqui .
Resumo da trama de Wikipédia :
The one-sided dialog takes the form of correspondence from Skander, an alien, to an unnamed human whose replies are not presented. Skander spends some time in the first letters describing his home planet of Aurigae II, a hot planet circling a star in Auriga. Later, Skander admits that he is a criminal, incarcerated for conducting illegal scientific experiments. Desiring to see his pen pal, he sends several photographic sheets that can be exposed if the user simply thinks about a picture being taken.
The last letter is from the unnamed human back to Skander. The human is now in Skander's body. He realized long ago that Skander was trying to scam him, and immediately took the "photographs" to the Earth authorities. They informed him they were a form of consciousness transfer device that Skander was attempting to use to escape from prison. Learning this, the human went through with the process anyway.
He hopes that Skander will enjoy the short time that he has left, trapped in a dying wheelchair-bound body.
