The Gladiator ct-4

by Harry Turtledove

  "Si." His father nodded. "He doesn't go anywhere, does he? He couldn't stick any closer to the Crosettis' flat if the Security Police were wailing for him outside."

  He was joking. Gianfranco understood that, but only after a split second of something worse than alarm. He felt as if someone dropped a big icicle down the back of his shirt. The laugh he managed sounded hollow in his own ears, and his smile must have looked pasted on. But his parents didn't notice anything wrong. Most of the time, they just saw what they expected to see.

  He often got angry at them for not paying more attention to him. Every once in a while, though, that was nothing but good luck.

  He did mention his second honors at dinner, but only after his mother poked him in the ribs three different times. "Yes, Annarita already told us," her father said. "Good for you. Sooner or later, studying usually pays off. Sometimes it's so much later that it hardly seems worth it at the time, though. I can't say anything different."

  A lot of families would have thrown Annarita's first honors back in the Mazzillis' faces like a grenade. None of the Croset-tis said a word. To listen to them, she might have earned ordinary marks, not outstanding ones. In their own quiet way, they had style.

  "Bravo, Gianfranco!" Eduardo-"Cousin Silvio"-said. "Good grades impress people-more than they should sometimes, but they do."

  Is that true in his home timeline, too? Gianfranco wondered. Too bad if it is. Because the home timeline was the source of the games and books and ideas he liked so much, he thought everything about it should be perfect.

  He got a chance to talk with Eduardo about that a couple of days later. "No, no, no." Eduardo shook his head. "Don't idealize us. If you think you've found paradise anywhere, you're bound to be wrong. That's one of the things that's wrong with Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism. The proletariat isn't made up of nothing but saints, and capitalists aren't all devils."

  Gianfranco felt a delicious thrill at hearing him say anything was wrong with the world's leading-the world's only legal-ideology. He supposed a priest hearing clever talk of heresy might have felt the same way. Like any Communist state, the Italian People's Republic glorified the workers. It said so, loudly, whenever it got the chance-especially on May Day every year. But the apartments the proletariat lived in made Gianfranco's seem a palace by comparison.

  He knew hypocrisy when he saw and heard it. Some things, though, he didn't know. Shyly, he asked, "What are capitalists like? Do they really think of nothing but money? Do they really want to exploit their workers as much as they can?"

  "Some of them do think about nothing but money," Ed-uardo answered, which disappointed him. "You need to think about money. And some of them would exploit workers as much as they could. That's why you have taxes, so some of the money capitalists make helps everybody. And that's why you have labor unions and you have laws regulating what corporations can do. The idea isn't to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. It's to keep the goose healthy and get some of the gold."

  "How do we get capitalists here, then?" Gianfranco found something else to ask: "How do we do it without making the government crack down, the way it did on you?"

  "Good question. If there are no other good questions, class is dismissed," Eduardo said.

  "Come on!" Gianfranco yelped.

  "I don't know how you do that. Nobody in the home time-line knows. That's why we were trying the shops. They didn't work-or maybe they worked too well," Eduardo said. "However you do it, it'll have to be by stealth. That seems plain."

  "Stealth? What do you mean?"

  "People will have to start buying and selling and investing without realizing it's capitalism. You'd have to call it something else, something that sounds properly Communist. Stakhanovite economic effort, maybe. The idea of working harder than other people doesn't go away-it just gets changed around."

  "It sure does," Gianfranco said. "Stakhanovites aren't supposed to work for themselves, though. They work for the state."

  "But they can get rewarded for it," Eduardo said. "That's the point. If the state thinks your work toward getting rich will help it, it won't get in the way-except states always get in the way some, because they're like that."

  "Hang on." Gianfranco raised a warning hand. "A minute ago, you said states needed laws to keep capitalists from exploiting workers. Now you say states get in the way. You can't have it both ways."

  "Sure you can-why not?" Eduardo answered. "You need some laws, and ways to enforce them. That's why there are states in the first place. Otherwise, the strong and the rich would oppress the weak and the poor. But if you have too many laws and too many taxes, who's strong and rich then? The state is. And it oppresses everybody. Does that sound familiar?"

  "Oh, maybe a little," Gianfranco allowed.

  Eduardo laughed. "I thought it might. The question is, what kind of laws do you really need? Drawing the line is what polities ought to be all about, if you ask me."

  Gianfranco had been asking him. His own political ideas were murky before he started going to The Gladiator. He largely accepted the system he was born into. Why not? It was all he knew, and his father had done well under it.

  But now he saw some reasons why not. He hadn't missed freedom because he hadn't known there was anything to miss. Talking with Eduardo was like looking at another world. Just like that, he thought. And, no matter how Eduardo downplayed it, Gianfranco was convinced it was a better world.

  How could it be anything else? People from Eduardo's home timeline knew how to come here. The cleverest scientists in this whole world had no idea any others lay off to the side, as it were. That right there said everything that needed saying about who knew more.

  And Eduardo's computer put all the electronics in this whole world to shame. People here wouldn't be able to make anything so small yet powerful for a hundred years-if they ever figured out how. And even if they did, chances were the government wouldn't let them build the machine.

  If everybody had a computer like that, what would stop people from hooking all their computers together? They'd be able to figure out in an instant if somebody in the government was lying. And people in the government lied all the time. All those Five-Year Plans got overfulfilled again and again, yet somehow life never looked any better. The state didn't wither away-it got stronger. And anyone who said out loud that the Emperor had no clothes discovered that, while the Emperor might be naked, he did have the Security Police.

  If you kick up a fuss, they'll get you, too, Gianfranco thought. But if he didn't kick up a fuss, he'd never be free. He was damned if he didn't, doomed if he did. He saw no way out.

  Final exams were coming. Everybody at Hoxha Polytechnic started going crazy. Seniors got especially jumpy. How they did would tell the story of who got into the good universities and who didn't. Anyhow, it would if they didn't have the right connections. You could tell the people who did. They were the ones who could afford to smile and take it easy. Everybody else hated them.

  Annarita was only a junior, so she wasn't quite so frantic. She still wanted to do well. She had her own stubborn pride, and she knew her parents expected good marks from her. And, in spite of all the talking she'd done with Eduardo, she still took "from each according to his abilities" seriously. If she was able-and she was-she was supposed to do as well as she could.

  She knew Gianfranco was also studying hard. He'd even turned down a couple of chances to play Rails across Europe. She hadn't thought a new outbreak of the Black Death could make him do that.

  Neither had Eduardo. When he wasn't playing the railroad game with Gianfranco and her, he played chess with her father. He lost more often than he won, but he won often enough to keep him interested and playing. He fit in well with the Crosettis-he might almost have been a real cousin. If the Security Police weren't after him, everything would have been fine.

  When Annarita said as much one evening, her father looked up from his book. "That's a big if, sweetheart."

  "Well, yes, but-" Annarita stopped, n
ot sure how to go on.

  "But they haven't knocked on the door yet. That's what you mean, isn't it?" her father said.

  "I guess it is," she admitted sheepishly.

  "That's not a reason to relax," he said. "If it's anything, it's a reason to be more careful. You and Gianfranco have done very well-and the proof is, nobody's arrested us yet. You have to keep doing it, though, both of you."

  "We know," Annarita said.

  "I hope so," her father said. "Do you really understand everything that's at stake? We don't have everything you wish we did. We aren't as free as you wish we were. But we do have enough-more than enough, really. And nobody would come down on us as long as we didn't stick our necks out. Now we've done it. If the Security Police do get us, we lose everything we've got. And you lose your future. That's worst of all."

  It didn't seem real to Annarita. Nothing after exams seemed real to her. That must have shown on her face, because her father laughed the saddest laugh she'd ever heard. "What is it?" she asked.

  "I remember what it's like not to think past day after tomorrow-next week at the latest," he answered. "You think I don't? I was like that once upon a time. Everybody is. You get older, though, you change. You'd better. If you don't, you make a foolish grown-up-that's for sure. You have to start looking further down the road."

  "How do you do that?" Annarita didn't really believe she could do it if he told her how. She didn't believe it, but she hoped.

  "Experience," her father said.

  That made her angry. "Experience is what grown-ups say when they mean, 'Go away, kid. Get lost.'"

  Her father laughed again, this time with something closer to real amusement. "Well, sweetheart, you've got something there. Ten years ago, you were a little girl. Ten years ago, I was pretty much the same as I am now. I have a wider platform than you do. Only time can give you one like it."

  "Your hair had less gray in it," Annarita said. "Pictures show that, anyway-you look about the same to me."

  "I had a little more hair, too." Her father touched his temples, where it had receded. "You hadn't given me so much gray then. These past few weeks, I'm surprised my hair hasn't turned white."

  "Ts it as bad as that?"

  He shook his head. "It's worse. If we get caught, all this is kaput. Kaput, you hear? Gone. Lost. Forever. You always get the dirty end of the stick after they let you out of camp. You're just a zek after that, not a person any more. If they let you out. For something like this, they might not."

  "They don't keep people forever." Like anyone else, Annarita had a good notion of what happened after you vanished into the netherworld of the camps.

  "No, they don't." Her father nodded, but he looked grim. "But they don't always let them out, either. Sometimes people die in there. Heart failure, the death certificates say, or, Brain hemorrhage. A 9mm bullet can cause either one."

  Annarita bit her lip. Again like anyone else, she knew those things could happen. But she didn't like to think about them. She especially didn't like to think about them happening to her.

  When she said so, her father's mouth tightened. He didn't get angry at her very often, but he did now. She'd disappointed him. "Anything that can happen can happen to you. If you don't know that here and here"-he tapped his forehead, then his belly-"you don't know anything."

  He was right, which didn't make Annarita any happier.

  "What are we going to do?" she wondered out loud.

  "You should have asked that when you brought your stray puppy home and asked if we could keep it," her father said.

  "Edu-Silvio's no puppy!"

  "No. He's more dangerous than a puppy ever could be."

  "Why didn't you send him away, then?"

  "I probably should have." Her father sighed. "But he made me too curious. He persuaded me he really isn't from here, from this world, at all. 1 never imagined anyone could do that. It's one reason I let him stay. And the other one is even simpler-it was already too late to kick him out."

  "Why?" Annarita said. "He carries a computer in his pocket, not a gun like a gangster. What could he do?"

  "He could get caught by the Security Police, that's what," her father answered. "And after that, he could tell them he was here."

  "He wouldn't do that!" she exclaimed.

  "He wouldn't want to, I'm sure. When they start squeezing, what you want has nothing to do with anything." Her father looked and sounded very unhappy. "So they would find out he was here, and we didn't turn him in. And not turning him in is as bad to them as sheltering him. So if I'm going to be hung, I might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb."

  Annarita eyed him. "All his talk about freedom has you going just like Gianfranco, doesn't it?"

  "I don't want to admit that. I'm supposed to be too old and cynical to care about such things," her father said. "But yes, I'm afraid it does. And 1 am afraid, because I can't see how this is likely to end up well for anybody."

  "If he gets away, if he goes back to the home timeline, then it's as if he were never really here," Annarita said.

  "If pigs had wings, we'd all carry umbrellas," her father said.

  That made her blink. He wasn't usually so blunt. "Everything will be fine," she said.

  He got up from his chair, walked over, and kissed her on top of the head. "I wish I were seventeen again. Then I could close my eyes and all my problems would disappear just like that." He snapped his fingers.

  "I'm not an ostrich. I don't stick my head in the sand," Annarita said. "And if you think I do, you ought to listen to Gianfranco."

  "Boys are born radicals at that age. They want Causes." The way her father said it, she could hear the capital letter. He went on, "It makes them good soldiers, too. The captain says, 'Take that hill for the country,' and they go, 'Yes, sir!' instead of, 'What? Are you nuts? I'll get shot!'"

  "Freedom is a good cause, si?" Annarita said.

  "One of the best," her father answered. "But it's also one of the ones most likely to get somebody shot."

  Nine

  "Time!" the teacher said loudly. "Put your pencils down now. Do not mark any more answers on your tests. Pass your papers forward immediately."

  Gianfranco let out a long, loud, weary sigh. Most of the time, such an uncouth noise would have landed him in trouble. Now it was just one of a chorus. He waggled his wrist back and forth, trying to work out writer's cramp. Something inside the wrist cracked as if it were a knuckle. He stared at it in dismay. It wasn't supposed to do that… was it?

  The last final. Everything was over for the year. Well, almost over. Everybody had to come back Monday to get report cards marked. Teachers would spend the weekend figuring out what everybody's grades were. That was a lot of work, but Gianfranco didn't worry about it. The only thing he worried about was what marks he'd end up with.

  A year earlier, he wouldn't have cared much about that. But when you started doing well, you wanted to do better. He wouldn't have believed that before, but it turned out to be true.

  After counting the exams, the teacher nodded. "I have all your papers," he said formally. "You are dismissed."

  Again, there was more noise than usual as the students got up. Something in Gianfranco's back popped, too. Fm wearing out, he thought. / need oiling or something.

  As he walked toward the entrance to wait for Annarita, another thought crossed his mind. Fll be a junior next year. Where did the time go? Hadn't he been in primary school just a little while ago? No matter what he felt like, the answer was no.

  Annarita got there less than a minute after he did. "How'd it go?" she asked.

  He shrugged. "I'll know for sure on Monday. It didn't seem too bad, though." He made as if to knock on wood. "How about you?" he said.

  "I'm glad it's over," Annarita said. "I hope it turned out all right." She always talked that way. Anybody who didn't know her would think she was worried. Gianfranco knew better. She always came through.

  "Want to go to a movie to celebrate finishing?" Gianfran
co asked.

  "We can do that," Annarita answered. Gianfranco hoped that meant she wasn't saying yes to be nice. Better than saying no, he thought. She went on, "What I want to do right now is go home and catch up on my sleep. That would be wonderful."

  "Sure, but do you have five years to do it in?" he said. She laughed, for all the world as if he were kidding. He knew how hard she worked.

  They left Hoxha Polytechnic behind for another school year. She would be a senior when they came back in six weeks. She would have to worry about the university and the rest of her life. Gianfranco wasn't ready for that yet. He wondered whether Annarita was.

  Maria Tenace came up to Annarita and wagged a finger in her face. "You'll never be president of the Young Socialists' League!" she said. "Never!"

  "I wasn't really worried about it," Annarita said.

  "You were wrong about The Gladiator," Maria continued, as if she hadn't spoken. "Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!" She lovingly sang the word. "And you're going to pay for it. Pay! Pay! Pay!" Then she waltzed off without giving Annarita a chance to answer.

  "You sure know some nice people," Gianfranco remarked.

  "Si. And I know Maria, too," Annarita said.

  That was funny and sad and true, all at the same time. "1 hope she can't do anything worse than keep you from being president," Gianfranco said.

  "I'm not even sure she can do that," Annarita answered. "She probably means she'll run against me, and everybody will be afraid to vote for me because I was wrong. Maybe yes, maybe no." She waggled her hand. "She doesn't realize she scares people to death herself. Fanatics never think they're fanatics, but they are anyway."

  "If we could all see ourselves the way other people do…" Gianfranco said.

  "There's a poem about that in English." Annarita frowned. "I read it for European lit. They translated it into a funny mountain dialect-the notes said the English was in dialect, too."

  He stared. "How do you remember stuff like that?"

  "I don't know. 1 just do." Annarita stared, too, imitating his expression. He laughed. He must have looked pretty silly. "How come you don't?" she asked.