Free Fireball by John Christopher Page A

servants anyway.”
    â€œWhat are we then?”
    â€œGuests.”
    â€œFor how long?”
    Brad shrugged. In the rectangular pool that occupied the centre of the impluvium, water rose from two fountains and tinkled lazily back. Large golden fish swam among the water plants. Through the open roof one saw blue sky and a fragment of white cloud. The ceramic tiles had pictures of dolphins sporting in the waves, and there were paintings of saints on the walls. Simon had seen paintings very like them in the National Gallery. It was all calm and peaceful and luxurious, but something bothered him.
    He said: “I don’t know. . . .”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThis household is a Christian one, right? And Quintus Cornelius is a rich man.” Simon paused. “Back in gladiator school there was the man I told you about who helped me. Bos. He was a Christian,too. But he was also a gladiator, and his profession was killing people.”
    â€œYou could say the same about soldiers. A lot of those in our world were Christian.”
    â€œIt’s not the same. I’ve been trying to work out just where we are—or when we are. The fireball . . . we were pulled through it somehow into Roman Britain. Right?”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œBut what year? I can remember Constantine’s date—he became sole emperor in 324. Christianity became the state religion after that, so we must have gone back before it. But it’s a time in which Christians aren’t being persecuted. And Bos seems to find no difficulty being both a Christian and a gladiator, which doesn’t sound like early Christians to me.”
    Brad was grinning. “You’d like to know what year it is?”
    â€œI don’t suppose it makes much difference. But yes.”
    â€œNo problem. Nineteen eighty-one.”
    â€œCome on! You mean, it’s just a dream. Whose—yours or mine? I know I’m not dreaming.”
    â€œOkay, let’s figure it a little more closely. Christianity is not the state religion. So what is?”
    â€œWell, they have lots of different gods. All those temples round the forum.”
    â€œDid you hear any of the gladiators swear ‘by Julian’? Not Bos, of course, but the rest?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWho did you figure he was?”
    â€œI didn’t think. Julius Caesar? They made him a god.”
    â€œJulianus, not Julius. To be precise, Flavius Claudius Julianus. Born 331, emperor from 361 to 363. Julian the Apostate. He reversed Constantine’s ruling about Christianity and restored paganism. But he’d been emperor only two years when he went to war against the Persians. He did well to begin with; then he was wounded in battle and died of his wounds. The Christians took over again and this time stayed in charge.”
    â€œI still don’t see. . . .”
    â€œI’ve been quoting from our history books, on the other side of the fireball. On this side, things went differently. Julian wasn’t killed in his early thirties. He won that battle and went on to conquer thePersians. He did a few other things, like bringing the government of the empire back to Rome from Byzantium, where Constantine had moved it. In fact, he totally reorganized the empire. He didn’t die until he was nearly eighty, and he’d gotten things pretty stable by then. They’ve stayed that way.”
    Simon wondered if it could be some farfetched joke of Brad’s. But was being in a world that had never happened very different from being trapped in the past? He said: “An If world?”
    â€œExcept that from here the If world is the one we came from. You try talking to people about things like the Industrial Revolution and tanks and television and silicon chips—not to mention simple things like there being a pope in Rome instead of an emperor. Not easy, I can tell you.”
    â€œYou mean, you’ve tried? With