SNOW CRASH

“Please excuse me if I have misinterpreted your story,” the businessman says, “but I was under the impression that men of your race were not allowed to fight during that war.”

“Your impression is correct,” Hiro says. “My father was a truck driver.”

“Then how did he come to be in hand-to-hand combat with a Nipponese officer?”

“The incident took place outside a prisoner-of-war camp,” Hiro says. “My father and another prisoner tried to escape. They were pursued by a number of Nipponese soldiers and the officer who owned these swords.”

“Your story is very difficult to believe,” the businessman says, “because your father could not have survived such an escape long enough to pass the swords on to his son. Nippon is an island nation. There is nowhere he could have escaped to.”

“This happened very late in the war,” Hiro says, “and this camp was just outside of Nagasaki.”

The businessman chokes, reddens, nearly loses it. His left hand reaches up to grip the scabbard of his sword. Hiro looks around; suddenly they are in the center of an open circle of people some ten yards across.

“Do you think that the manner in which you came to possess these swords was honorable?” the businessman says.

“If I did not, I would long since have returned them,” Hiro says.

“Then you will not object to losing them in the same fashion,” the businessman says.

“Nor will you object to losing yours,” Hiro says.

The businessman reaches across his body with his right hand, grips the handle of his sword just below the guard, draws it out, snaps it forward so it’s pointing at Hiro, then places his left hand on the grip just below the right.

Hiro does the same.

Both of them bend their knees, dropping into a low squat while keeping the torso bolt upright, then stand up again and shuffle their feet into the proper stance-feet parallel, both pointed straight ahead, right foot in front of the left foot.

The businessman turns out to have a lot of zanshin. Translat