John Argo - A Planet Named Magic

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A Planet Named Magic

a sf short story

by John Argo

In the Strelsund Arm of the Nictitating Galaxy, around 3000 C.E., was one rather Earth-like world

named Magic. This world, the sixth planet of a G0-3 star not worth mentioning, had derived its name

from a rather interesting effect of gravity -- but more of that in a moment.

Magic was a water planet. It had lots of peninsulas and lagoons and the like, but no major continents. It

really had only two useful commodities -- breathable air and potable water -- so people did drift there by

and by to do such things as drive around, look each other up, keep shop, be bank tellers, serve as cops,

admire sunsets paled in sea mist, have children, need new shoes, and die.

Magic had several large-ish cities, nothing to write home about. Mundane was one of these cities, so

called by its founders in the fervent hope that nothing out of the ordinary would ever happen there, thus

making it one of the most livable cities in the Old ManTime Universe.

Mundane, barely a century old, still had most of its original glass. It stemmed from the era of building

pencil-thin buildings, and a quiver of these glowed dully pink in the sunset on Largo Peninsula. Amid the

buildings were parks and trees and places for children to play. There were hotels and restaurants,

hospitals and schools, banks and yes, a large jail, for in Mundane lived those beings known as People,

and when there were People, you never knew what might happen next.

Especially when you discovered that gravity on Magic was unlike gravity anywhere else.

Annie Stella was the 13th female clerk in the 6th row from the window in the main accounting department

of the Mundane Savings Bank (men clerks were paid almost the same but had to sit in another room

where there wasn't a window to look out of, or a clock to watch). Annie wasn't blonder or taller or more

buxom than any of the other women clerks. Annie, however, had mystique. She had a kind of beauty.

Maybe it was the big eyes. Or the way she would toss her bronzed pageboy. Or the quick, mischievous

grin before she looked down again at her reconciliation statements or at the terminal screen. Whatever it

was, she was the one at whom men always stared.

The thing about women like that, they always had really shtark boyfriends. All of the men staring were

losers, as far as Annie was concerned; to the opposite, Tommy Doone was the most superlative guy

around. He was a tall, dark, lean detective with MPD. He had easy, challenging eyes that mocked and

frightened bad guys, but reassured good guys. Tommy was Annie Stella's guy. Had been for years. They

were getting married soon, and Annie talked of nothing else. Normally that drove women crazy, to hear a

woman carrying on about her intended, but Tommy Doone was every woman's dream, and they talked

about him no end.

One day, Stella called Tommy at the police department. She was at work in a 100-story pencil thin

building overlooking the sea, and in tears. "I can't even go out on my break anymore and look at the

ocean."

"What's the matter?" Tommy said in his easy manner, putting his feet up and tilting his ball cap back while

his cannon dangled by his elbow in a leather shoulder holster. He was in another pencil-thin building by

the park in the center of town, a mile away.

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John Argo - A Planet Named Magic

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