（外文电子版资料）John Argo - A Planet Named Magic.pdf

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 wasnt a window to look out of, or a clock to watch). Annie wasnt 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