The Gladiator

"No? What, then?" Gianfranco knew he sounded suspicious-he was.

"When I was in high school, oh, a thousand years ago, we had this same assignment," his father said. "I haven't thought about it from then till now, but we did. And do you know the people I picked?"

A light went on in Gianfranco's head. "Ford and Sforza and Hitler?"

His father nodded. "St. Ford and Sforza and Hitler. So that's why I was laughing. Some of what you wrote even sounds familiar, but I can't prove that-it's been too long. Any which way, though, you're a chip off the old block. Now you can finish."

Gianfranco did. He wasn't sure he liked thinking like his father. Like it or not, he didn't know what he could do about it. Probably nothing. "Well, what do you think?" he asked.

"It's not exactly Dante." His father held up a hasty hand. "Neither was mine, believe me. The only one who was Dante… was Dante. But it does what it's supposed to do, and I think it's good enough to get you a pretty high grade. All right?"

"I guess so." Gianfranco didn't want to admit too much.

His father eyed him. "You've been doing better in school lately, haven't you?"

"Some, maybe." Gianfranco wondered where that was going. Would his father ask him why he hadn't done so well before? That would be good for a row.

But it didn't go anywhere much. His father just said, "Well, I'm glad," and went back to the Party Congress report. Gianfranco'd been ready to argue. Now he didn't have anything to argue about. He felt vaguely deflated as tension leaked out of him.

He'd got rid of the assignment, anyway. He stuck it in his notebook and looked to see what he had to do for history.

"Why can't you telephone your friends-wherever they are- and find out if they're all right?" A

"Well, I will if I have to, but I don't much want to," Eduardo answered. "Even if nobody's dropped on them, the Security Police are bound to be tapping their telephone lines. I don't want to do anything to hurt them, or to give myself away, either."

"Ah." A

"I don't, not with me. They do," Eduardo said. "But they don't use them all the time-what would the point be? So chances are I'd give myself away before they realized who I was. We don't work miracles. I wish we did."

"You have that little computer in your pocket, and you tell me you don't?" A

But Eduardo shook his head. "The computer can work by itself. If I use the telephone or write a letter, it has to go through the government phone lines or the postal system."

"You don't have your own phones?" A

"Sure we do. There's one in the computer, in fact. It works great in the home timeline, but not here," Eduardo said. "A phone isn't just a phone-it's part of a network. The only network it can be part of here is the one you've already got. We don't have our own satellites-people would notice if we launched one. They'd notice if we built our own relay towers, too, even if we did disguise them as trees or something."

A

But one other thing occurred to her. "If you can use your computer like a phone, can you use it like a radio, too?"

"Not… as far off as my friends are, if they're still here," Eduardo said. "And even if I could, the Security Police would be listening. Best thing I can do right now is sit tight and wait for the hullabaloo to die down. Maybe the goons will decide everybody got away and stop being interested in me."

"Maybe." A

Eduardo sighed. "You're right, of course, no matter how much I wish you were wrong. I don't dare take anything for granted."

"Do you want to hear something fu

"Right now, I'd love to hear something fu

"Talking about Gianfranco put it into my head," A

By the look on Eduardo's face, he didn't think it was even a little silly. He seemed ready to jump up from the sofa and run. "How jealous? Jealous why?" he demanded. "That could be very bad. He's a Party official's kid. If he goes to the Security Police, they'll listen to him, sure as the devil."

"He wouldn't do that!" A

"Hmm." Eduardo didn't sound convinced. He didn't know Gianfranco the way she did. But her neck wasn't on the line- at least not directly-and Eduardo's was. He went on, "You didn't answer my question. What's he jealous about?"

"Well, he kind of likes me," A

"Diavolo!" Eduardo clapped a hand to his forehead. "Will you please tell him nothing's going on? Nothing will be going on, either. Or maybe I should talk to him myself. Si, that'd be better. I'll do it."

"Grazte," A

"Well… Not as silly as you think, maybe," Eduardo said slowly. "If you were twenty-one, say, instead of seventeen… If I weren't in a jam…" He kept starting sentences he didn't finish. "But you aren't, and I am," he went on, confusing A

"Uh, right," A

Now she was starting sentences and not finishing them. And maybe that was just as well, too.

Gianfranco rolled the dice and moved his locomotive from Berlin toward Vie

A

"Getting on towards one in the morning," Eduardo said after looking at his watch.

She yawned again. "I'm going to bed. I don't care if tomorrow-I mean, today-is Sunday. I'm too sleepy to play anymore. Good night." She slipped away before Gianfranco could even try to talk her into going on a little longer.

He sighed and shrugged. "We'll just mark everything and pick it up again later on."

"Right." Eduardo took care of that and put the game back in the box. Then he said, "It ought to be pretty quiet out on the street, right? Come on out, why don't you? I've got some stuff I want to talk to you about."

"What kind of stuff?" Gianfranco asked.

"Stuff, that's what." Eduardo got up. "You coming or not?"

"I'm coming," Gianfranco said. "What do you want to say out there that you don't want to say in here?"

Eduardo didn't answer. Whatever it was, he didn't want to say it in here. They went down the stairs together. Somebody from the floor above Gianfranco's was coming up. He'd had a good bit to drink. "Ciao" he said thickly. He reeled on the stairs. Gianfranco hoped he wouldn't trip and break his neck.

It was cool and dark and quiet outside. Well, not too quiet- Milan was a big city. In the distance, car horns blared. Dogs were barking. Somebody yelled at somebody else. But none of that was close. Gianfranco and Eduardo could stand on the sidewalk and not worry about it.