The Gladiator

"I've never been here before, but I know it's up near the top." Eduardo pointed up toward the castle that crowned the mountain. Gianfranco didn't quite groan, but his face looked mutinous. An-narita's legs felt mutinous.

"Maybe we could stop for a little while before we get there," Gianfranco said.

"Well, maybe we could." Eduardo pointed again, this time towards a little shop that sold cold drinks and snacks. "How about a Fanta? You'll move faster with some sugar in you."

"Now you're talking!" Gianfranco said. A

You didn't sit down inside. Instead, you stood at tall tables. No doubt that helped move people in and out and made more money for the fellow in the white apron who served up the sodas. It wasn't the kind of place that had, or wanted, regulars.

In keeping with San Marino 's eagerness to draw tourists, it dressed its policemen in comic-opera uniforms. Three of them marched past the snack shop. Several people photographed the procession. "They look like a bunch of clowns," Gianfranco said.

Eduardo shook his head. "They dress like a bunch of clowns. It's not the same thing. Look at their guns. Look at their faces."

He had a point, A

They paused, then moved towards a man who lurched along the sidewalk. When they held out their hands for his papers- a request understood from San Marino to San Francisco -he didn't hand them over. Instead, he shouted a mouthful of Slavic consonants at them.

"Ooh-he's a Russian," Gianfranco said softly. Even the police had to be careful with citizens of the strongest country in the world.

"He looks like one," A

"You wouldn't see many Italians drunk this early in the morning," Eduardo said, which was also true. Lots of people joked about the way Russians drank. Russians joked about it themselves, which didn't stop them from doing it.

The policemen stayed polite, but they didn't go away. One of them said something. The Russian tourist shook his head. 'Wye kulturny!" he shouted. A

A second later, he was on the ground himself. The Sam-marinese policemen gave him a thorough thumping, then yanked him upright and started to haul him away. The one who'd lost his hat picked it up, carefully pushed out the dent the Russian gave it, and set it back on his head at the right jaunty angle.

"You idiots, you can't do this to me!" the tourist shouted in Russian. None of the local policemen showed any sign of following him. She wondered if she ought to translate, but decided that would only make matters worse. A moment later, as if to prove her right, the tourist yelled the same thing in bad Italian.

"Idiots, are we?" said the policeman whose hat the Russian had knocked off. "See how stupid you think this is." He punched the tourist in the nose. By the drunk man's howl, he thought it smarted.

"Bozhemoi!" he shouted, and snuffled, because blood was ru

A different policeman punched him this time. "Shut up," he said coldly. "We jug drunk Russians about three times a day. If we wanted to waste our time on you, we could send you to one of our camps for assaulting a police officer. Keep ru

The tourist said something that had to be mat'. A

A

"If you are-if you aren't just a lying Russian lush-you're a disgrace to your service," one of the policemen retorted. "Come down to the station, and we'll find out what you are. And you'll find out you can't mess with police officers no matter what kind of big cheese you think you are."

They dragged him away. "He'll get off," Gianfranco said gloomily. "Russians always do."

"He shouldn't. He was drunk and disorderly," A

"They shouldn't be able to do things like that." Gianfranco looked at Eduardo. Plainly, he was waiting for Eduardo to tell him things like that never happened in the home timeline.

Eduardo sighed instead. "You'll find people with influence wherever you go," he said. "Whether that has to do with money or politics or power really doesn't matter. It's the influence that counts."

"Blat," A

Eduardo nodded, then asked, "You guys done?" Gianfranco was. A

He wasn't kidding. Up they went. It wasn't like climbing stairs in an apartment building. It was more like climbing them in a skyscraper. A

At last, after what seemed like a very long time, they made it to the top of the mountain. The street there led to the castle and, signs promised, the museum inside. "Well, I'm ready for another Fanta," Gianfranco said. Eduardo gave him a look. "Just kidding," he added hastily.

Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. A

And there was a sign with three dice on it, each showing a six. People were going in and out of that shop, the same as they were with the ones to either side of it. "It's open!" Gianfranco said joyfully.

A

It looked just like The Gladiator. The same games and books and military models were on display in the front window. Most of the people going in were guys between Gianfranco's age and Eduardo's. Most of them had the same look. A