NEAL STEPHENSON

war effort. Worked in the kitchen, preparing siop for the prisoners and the guards. He kept to himself a lot. Everyone avoided him because he smelled terrible. His bed stank up the barracks.”

“He was cooking up aconite whale poison from mushrooms and other substances that he found in the fields and secreted in his clothing,” Raven says.

“Besides,” Him continues, “they were pissed at him because he broke out a windowpane in the barracks once, and it let cold air in for the rest of the winter. Anyway, one day, after lunch, all of the guards became terribly sick?’

“Whale poison in the fish stew,” Raven says.

“The prisoners were already out working in the fields, and when the guards began to get sick, they began to march them all back in toward the barracks, because they couldn’t keep watch over them when they were doubled over with stomach cramps. And this late in the war, it wasn’t easy to bring in reinforcements. My father was last in the line of prisoners. And this Aleut guy was right in front of him.”

Raven says, “As the prisoners were crossing an irrigation ditch, the Aleut dove into the water and disappeared.”

“My father didn’t know what to do,” Hiro says, “until he heard a grunt from the guard who was bringing up the rear. He turned around and saw that this guard had a bamboo spear stuck all the way through his body. Just came out of nowhere. And he still couldn’t see the Aleut. Then another guard went down with his throat slit, and there was the Aleut, winding up and throwing another spear that brought down yet another guard.”

“He had been making harpoons and hiding them under the water in the irrigation ditches,” Raven says.

“Then my father realized,” Him continues, “that he was doomed. Because no matter what he said to the guards, they would consider him to have been a part of an escape attempt, and they would bring a sword and lop his head off. So, figuring that he might as well bring down a few of the enemy before they got to him, he took the gun from the first guard who had been hit, jumped down into the cover of the irrigation ditch, and shot mother couple of guards who were coming over to investigate.”

Raven says, “The Aleut ran for the border fence, which was a