SOLVED. Science Fiction short story or novella. A Body Swapping spy on Space India. [s]

[Edwin]

I heard a reading on Youtube and I’m gonna give pretty much the whole plot SPOILERS AHEAD

. It’s some kind of short story or novelette. In it the hero has discovered the secret of staying alive by moving his spirit into recently deceased bodies and staying in them until they give out. He’s sent to some planet by the earth government to investigate suspicious goings on and arranged for a new body by the local governor.

The world is essentially where all the Hindu/Indian people moved from earth. It’s a hot, arid world with a lot of stereotypical stuff like swamis. The swamis are working with local officials to smuggle stuff but you only find out what towards the end.

The hero in his new body (they don’t tell you but its obviously that he’s inhabiting a woman’s body now goes out investigating and ends up joining a work line for people applying for a job. He’s harassed, saved and then paired with his savior on the job he gets.

The job is transporting crates from a hidden location and not asking questions, with a bonus going to whoever finds him because they know he’s there and snooping around, but not what body he’s in.

Eventually they open the crates, find out it’s nuclear weapons from a war in the past and are attacked by some bad guy. Eventually the hero crashes the jet/truck they’re on and saves the day.

Later on, our hero is speaking with the local governor after things have been wrapped up. War has been averted. The guy who saved our hero is hospitalized but alive, and is asking for him, and you find out *gasp* he managed to do all this while he was a GIRL.

I think it was serialized but can’t figure out what it was for the life of me.

Any help would be major. Thanks in advance

[Kris]

Edwin, around what year did you hear about this about?

It's written for adults, not teens?

[Edwin]

Kris wrote: "Edwin, around what year did you hear about this about?

It's written for adults, not teens?"

It was written for adults. It was a reading of an old magazine story and I forgot when it was written but I heard it for the first time this or last year, but at least during the era when people were writing about space travel

[Edwin]

I found it! The title is Think Yourself to Death by C.H. Thames

It’s a Johnny Mayhem story

[Kris]

Glad you found your book, Edwin. Here's the link - Think Yourself to Death by C H Thames (a.k.a. Milton Lesser).