The Gladiator by Harry Turtledove

informers brought on her went in there. Maria might well go to the trouble of writing out a denunciation. All the same, Annarita didn’t think the folder would be very thick. She didn’t go out of her way to cause trouble. Nothing the authorities had, wherever they got it from (and the informers you didn’t know about, the ones who seemed like friends, could be more dangerous than out-and-out foes like Maria), would make large men in ill-fitting suits knock on her door in the middle of the night.
    She hoped.
    â€œI wish—” she began, and then she stopped.
    â€œWhat?” Filippo asked.
    â€œNothing,” Annarita said, and then, “I’d better head for home.”
    As she walked out of Hoxha Polytechnic, she knew she’d been right on the edge of saying something really dumb. She shook her head. That wasn’t right. She’d been on the edge of saying something risky. Saying risky things was dumb, but what she almost said wasn’t dumb at all. She sure didn’t think so, anyhow.
    I wish it weren’t like this. I wish we could speak freely. I wish
the Security Police would leave us alone. I wish there were no Security Police .
    If she did say something like that, what would happen? She’d get labeled a counterrevolutionary. She’d get taken somewhere for what they called reeducation. If she was lucky, they’d let her out after a while. Even if they did, though, her chances for making it to the top would be gone forever.
    If she wasn’t so lucky, or if they thought she was stubborn, she’d go to a camp after reeducation. She’d probably only get five years, ten at the most—she was still young, so they’d give her the benefit of the doubt. But she’d stay under suspicion, under surveillance, the rest of her life.
    Just for saying people ought to be free of the Security Police. For saying people ought to be free, period.
    That’s not right , she thought. It really isn’t . She looked around in alarm, as if she’d shouted it as loud as she could. She hadn’t, of course, but she worried all the way home anyway. Maybe she really was a counterrevolutionary after all.

Four
    â€œYou’re helping me in school,” Gianfranco told Eduardo the next time he walked into The Gladiator.
    â€œDon’t say that.” The clerk thrust out the index and little fingers of his right hand, holding the other two down with his thumb—a gesture against the evil eye. “Who’d come in here if he thought we were educational?”
    â€œBut you are. What would you call it?” Gianfranco pointed to the shelves full of books.
    â€œThat stuff?” Eduardo shook his head. “That’s only to help people play the games better. Games are just games. How can they teach you anything?”
    Gianfranco might not be sharp in school. But he could hear irony, even if he didn’t always call it by its right name. “You’re trying to fool me,” he said now. “Lots of people have learned lots of things from your books.”
    â€œNow you know our secret,” Eduardo whispered hoarsely. “And do you know what happens to people who find out?”
    â€œTell me,” Gianfranco said, curious in spite of himself. Eduardo used another gesture, with thumb and forefinger—he aimed an imaginary pistol at Gianfranco. “Bang!” he said.
    Even though Gianfranco laughed, he wasn’t a hundred percent
comfortable doing it. Eduardo was joking—Gianfranco thought Eduardo was joking—but he sounded a little too serious. If The Gladiator had a real secret, he might do everything he could to keep it.
    How much was that? How much could people at a little shop like this do if somebody powerful—say, the Security Police—came down on them? Gianfranco’s first thought was, Not much . But after a moment, he started to wonder. The Young Socialists’ League at Hoxha Polytechnic