The Gladiator by Harry Turtledove

his stories were interesting anyway. Then Signor Mazzilli went on—and on—about some policy decision that wouldn’t mean much either way. Annarita thought he was a bore, but she tried not to show it. The Crosettis and Mazzillis had to live together, so getting along was better than arguing all the time.
    After she helped her mother with the dishes, though, she hunted up her father, who was reading a medical journal. “Can I ask you something?” she said.
    â€œWhy not?” He put down the journal. “This new procedure sounds wonderful, but it’s so complicated and expensive that no one will use it more than once every five years. What’s on your mind?”
    She told him about visiting The Gladiator. “I don’t know what I should say to the Young Socialists’ League,” she finished.
    â€œAre they hurting anybody?” her father asked. He looked as if he ought to smoke a pipe, but he didn’t. He said he’d seen too many cases of mouth cancer to want one of his own.

    â€œHurting anybody? No.” Annarita shook her head. “But they’re ideologically unsound.”
    â€œAnd so? I’m ideologically unsound, too. Most people are, one way or another,” her father said. “Most of the time, it doesn’t matter. You learn to keep quiet about it when you’re not with people you can trust—and you learn not to trust too many people. Or it’s about something so silly that you can talk about it and it doesn’t count, even if you are sailing against the wind. So what’s The Gladiator doing that’s so awful?”
    â€œThey’re selling games that make capitalism look good,” Annarita answered.
    â€œAre they?” Whatever her father had expected, that plainly wasn’t it. “How do they think they can get away with that?” he asked. Annarita told him how Eduardo had explained it to her. Her father clicked his tongue between his teeth. “This fellow should have been either a Jesuit or a lawyer. Does he think the Security Police will let him get away with a story like that?”
    â€œThe government tolerates the Church. Why wouldn’t it put up with something like this?” Annarita asked.
    â€œIt tolerates the Church because the Church has been around for almost 2,100 years. The Church is big and powerful, even if it doesn’t have any divisions. The Russians let religion breathe, and they don’t usually put up with anything.” Her father looked unhappy. “A shop that’s been open two years at the most just doesn’t have that kind of clout. If this Eduardo can’t see that, he needs to get his eyes examined.”
    â€œDo you suppose somebody’s going to start a company or sell stock or exploit his workers because of The Gladiator?” Annarita asked. Those were things capitalists did. She knew that much, if not much more.
    â€œWith the laws the way they are now, I’m not sure you could
start a company. I’m pretty sure you can’t sell stock,” her father answered. “You’d have to be crazy to try, wouldn’t you? Who’d want to stick his neck out that way?”
    â€œWhat am I supposed to tell the League?” That was Annarita’s real worry.
    â€œWell, it depends,” her father said. “Do you want to get these people in trouble? If you do, I bet you can.”
    â€œBut I don’t, not really. Most of them are like Gianfranco—a bunch of guys who don’t get out much sitting around rolling dice and talking,” Annarita said. That made her father laugh. She went on, “What could be more harmless, really?”
    She thought he would say nothing could. Instead, he looked thoughtful. “Well, I don’t know,” he said. “When the Bolsheviks started out, they were just a bunch of guys who didn’t get out much sitting around drinking coffee and talking. And look what happened on