Again the major fought his concentration back onto his own preparations. There was no point in getting oneself wound up over speculations. Shortly the matter would be decided once and for all in the real thing.
The demonstration was over now, and the director-the coach from the university fencing club-was taking over the microphone to address the crowd. O’Donnel had met him earlier, a spry little man who was obviously nervous about directing for this confrontation in front of an audience, not to mention the holo cameras, yet his voice was firm and confident as he launched into his explanation of the sport for the benefit of the spectators.
This, at least, the major had no difficulty ignoring as he resumed his stretching exercises. He had heard it all before, even knew it by heart. He also knew that it was extremely difficult to explain some of the subtler points of fencing, like “right-of-way,” to those impatient to see “people swinging from ropes while hacking at each other with swords,” the common misconception of the sport generated by countless swashbuckler movies and holos.
Simply put, “right-of-way” was a set of rules designed to preserve the true spirit of dueling, from which fencing descended. By those rules, once fencer A had “declared an attack” by extending his weapon to an arm’s length, threatening a valid target area, fencer B had to parry or otherwise remove that threat before retaliating with an attack of his own. The logic was that if the competitors were using “real” weapons capable of inflicting injury or death, it would be foolhardy, if not suicidal, to ignore an attack in favor of launching one of your own. Though the concept itself might be simple, a goodly portion of any fencing bout was spent with the competitors standing by impatiently after a blinding flurry of action while the director sorted out exactly who had the right-of-way at each moment during the exchange so that the touch, or point, could be awarded. This was, of course, a little lens exciting than watching grass grow. The only thing duller than sorting out right-of-way was listening to it being explained.