Unexpected Magic Read Online Free

nearest component a friendly pat as she leaned toward the screen again. The latest mug of cooling kivay sat beside her. Her nose was, as usual, tickled by burned ginger or something. Her back was beginning to ache, or, more truthfully, her behind was. She ought to get a more comfortable chair, but she was too fond of this old one. Anyway, the latest book was the thing. For this one, she had at last gone back to starship Candida. There had been a lot of pressure from her fans. And her publisher thought there was enough material in their suggestions, combined with F. C. Stone’s own ideas, to make a trilogy. So she had decided to start in the way she knew would get her going. She typed:
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Jump. Time nad the world stretched dna went out. Back. The Captain had sat at her boards for four objective days—four subjective minutes or four subjective centuries. Her head ached, gums adn all. She cursed. Hands trembling on controls, she struggled to get her fix on this system’s star.
    Now what had some vastly learned reader suggested about this system’s star? It had some kind of variability, but that was all she could remember. Damn. All her notes for it were in that file Danny had set up for her. He was at school. But he had written down for her how to recall it. She fumbled around for his piece of paper—it had worked halfway under a black box whose name and function she never could learn—and took a swig of lukewarm xfy while she studied what to do. It looked quite simple. She took another sip of gav. Store the new book. Careful not to cancel this morning’s work. There. Screen blank. Now type in this lot, followed by Candida 2. Then—
    A clear childish voice spoke. “This is Candida Two, Candy,” it said. “Candida One, I need your confirmation.”
    It was no voice F. C. Stone knew, and it seemed to come from the screen. Her eyes turned to the mug of kivay. Perhaps she was in a state of altered consciousness.
    â€œCandida One!” the voice said impatiently. “Confirm that you are conscious. I will wait ten seconds and then begin lifesaving procedures. Ten, nine, eight … ”
    This sounded serious. Coffee poisoning, thought F. C. Stone. I shall change to carrot juice or cocoa.
    â€œ … seven, six, five,” counted the childish voice, “four, three … ”
    I’d better say something, thought F. C. Stone. How absurd. Weakly she said, “Do stop counting. It makes me nervous.”
    â€œ Are you Candida One?” demanded the voice. “The voice pattern does not quite tally. Please say something else for comparison with my records.”
    Why should I? thought F. C. Stone. But it was fairly clear that if she stayed silent, the voice would start counting again and then, presumably, flood the room with the antidote for xfy.
    No, no, this was ridiculous. There was no way a word processor could flood anyone’s system with anything. Come to that, there was no way it could speak either—or was there? She must ask Danny. She was just letting her awe of the machine, and her basic ignorance, get on top of her. Let us be rational here, she thought. If she was not suffering from gav poisoning, or if, alternatively, the smell of charred turmeric at present flooding the house did not prove to have hallucinogenic properties, then she had worked too long and hard imagining things and was now unable to tell fantasy from reality … unless—what a wonderful thought!—Danny had, either for a joke or by accident, connected one of the black boxes to the radio and she was at this moment receiving its Play for the Day.
    Her hand shot out to the radio beside her, which she kept for aural wallpaper during the duller part of her narratives, and switched it on. Click. “During this period Beethoven was having to contend with his increasing deafness—”
    The childish voice cut in across this