Harry Turtledove - The Gladiator

"Well, I don't know," Eduardo repeated. "This isn't something just anybody can take care of." That was bound to be true. Maybe nobody in this whole world could take care of it. Certainly nobody from this whole world could take care of it.

"And so? Do I look like just anybody?" The fellow in the grimy coveralls drew himself up with touchy pride. The answer there, as far as Gianfranco could see, was yes. The repairman was around forty. He was chunky-not fat, but definitely chunky. He should have shaved this morning, but he hadn't. His face wouldn't set the girls' hearts pounding, not with that honker in the middle of it. "So what's your trouble? Home? Industrial? This is a good time to get industrial work done. Not much happens in August most places."

"Why are you open, then?" Gianfranco asked.

"Somebody's gotta be," the repairman said with a resigned shrug. "We take turns with four or five other outfits. It's our year. What can I tell you?" He spread his hands.

"How long have you been in business here?" Eduardo asked. For a moment, Gianfranco didn't get it. Then he did. Tf this guy's great-grandfather had started the shop, it had nothing to do with the home timeline.

But the man answered, "Just a few years. We're modern, we are. We don't have a bunch of old stuff to unlearn. When we do something, we do it right the first time."

"Were you here the last time the Azzuri made it to the World Cup finals?" Eduardo inquired. Gianfranco thought him a fool for asking. The Italian team hadn't got that far since before he was born. Then Gianfranco caught himself. The Blues hadn't got that far here. It was different in the home timeline. That story Eduardo told…

The repairman suddenly stopped being bored. He thumped his elbows down on the counter and leaned forward. "That lousy ref," he growled. "We were robbed, nothing else but. If Korea hadn't got that goal-"

"Vietnam. It was Vietnam," Eduardo said, his own excitement rising. Gianfranco wondered who was testing whom. He decided they were testing each other. They both needed to.

"Si, you're right. It was." The repairman nodded.

Now Eduardo did some prodding: "It was the plainest hand ball anybody could see-except the blind fool didn't."

"No, no, no. It was an offside. Don't you remember anything?"

Eduardo took a deep breath. "I remember as much as any Italian from the home timeline would."

"So do I." The repairman came out and threw his arms around him and gave him a bear hug. They started dancing, right there in the middle of the shop. To Gianfranco's eyes, they couldn't have looked much sillier if they tried.

"I've been stuck here for months!" Eduardo exclaimed. "Now all I have to do is hop in a transposition chamber and I'm home."

"A transposition chamber? Here?" The repairman's face fell.

"Yes, here," Eduardo said impatiently. "The next closest one's in San Marino, and the Security Police are running that shop."

"Tell me about it!" the repairman said. "That's where we came through, and it's where we were going to go back from. Except now we can't."

Eduardo made as if to pound his head on the counter. "This isn't fair. It just isn't fair," he said. Gianfranco would have been screaming. In a way, Eduardo was, too, but in a quiet tone of voice. He went on, "I finally manage to connect with other people from the home timeline, and what good does it do me? Not even a little bit, because you're as stuck as I am."

" 'As I am'? Not 'as we are'?" The man in the coveralls jerked his thumb at Gianfranco. "Who's the kid? And how come you're running your mouth in front of him? If this is some kind of setup-"

"It isn't. He's all right. Odds are the Security Police would have nabbed me after they closed down The Gladiator if he didn't find me a place to stay," Eduardo said.

"Yeah?" The repairman gave Gianfranco a dubious look. "What have you got to say for yourself, kid?"

"Well, to begin with, stop calling me kid" Gianfranco said. "My name's Gianfranco. And it sounds like you need to get back into the shop in San Marino if you're going to go back to the home timeline."

"Brilliant deduction, Sherlock," the repairman said. "The only trouble is, we need to do it without making the Security Police land on us with both feet. I suppose you've got a way to manage that?" His sarcasm had a nastier edge than Eduardo's, which usually invited you to share the joke. When this guy gibed, the joke was likely to be on you.

But Gianfranco nodded. "I do. Or maybe I do, anyway."

Annarita and Gianfranco walked along the beach, their feet sometimes in the water, sometimes not, as little waves went in and out. A blond man with a dreadful sunburn jogged past. Annarita thought he was intent on putting in as many kilometers as he could before he burned to a crisp. By the look of him, he was almost there. A kid kicked a soccer ball around. He couldn't have been more than eight, but he was already pretty good.

"Do you really think this will work?" Annarita said. If she and Gianfranco couldn't talk safely here, they couldn't anywhere. Of course, that was also possible. And if they couldn't, they'd find out the hard way.

He shrugged. "1 don't know. We have a chance. If you've got any better ideas, I'd love to hear them."

Farther up on the sand, two teams were whacking a volleyball back and forth over a net. Most of the men and women were almost as badly burnt as the jogger. They were all laughing and grinning. Annarita couldn't understand why toasting your brains out was supposed to be so much fun. Maybe the Germans and Scandinavians never saw the sun at home, so they had to overdo it when they went on holiday. All the same…

She tried to pull her mind back to the business at hand. "Your father won't know what he's getting into, will he?"

"Well, no," Gianfranco admitted. "He wouldn't do it if he did." He looked a challenge at her. "Go on. Tell me I'm wrong."

She couldn't, and she knew it. "How much trouble will he get into if this all works out the way you want it to?"

"Shouldn't be too much," Gianfranco said confidently. "He's a Party official. He'd be doing the best job he knew how to do. Nobody could hold it against him."

"No? Are you sure?" Annarita didn't usually play devil's advocate, but it seemed natural here. "When something goes wrong, people almost always hold it against somebody. That way, they don't have to blame themselves."

"If it goes the way it's supposed to, nobody will even know anything's happened-nobody but us, I mean," Gianfranco said.

"If things always went the way they were supposed to, we'd all be happier. Richer, too, chances are," Annarita said.

"Well, what's our other choice?" Gianfranco asked. "Leaving the people from the home timeline stuck here for good. Do you want to do that?"

His voice held a certain edge. Yes, he was still a little jealous of Eduardo. And maybe he had reason to be if Eduardo did get stuck here. Seventeen and thirty made a scandal, but twenty-two and thirty-five could make a match. Annarita didn't know if that would happen. She didn't know if she wanted it to happen. But she did know it wasn't impossible-and so did Gianfranco.

She sighed and picked her words with care: "No, he should go home if he can. But remember that if he can. Better Cousin Silvio should get an apartment and a job here than the Security Police should catch him and grill him and throw him in a camp. And they would grill him-over a hot fire. Or do you think I'm

wrong.'

If he said yes to that, she would know he wasn't thinking very well at all. But he didn't. She gave him credit. "You're not wrong," he answered. "I didn't mean that. I don't want those goons grabbing him-who would? But he's ready to try it. So are the guys from the repair shop. They don't want to spend the rest of their lives here."