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You need only look at high-definition TV to see the future. You’ve had to abandon an industry into which you’ve sunk – what? – hundreds of billions of dollars. Why? Because Japanese HDTV is analog and, therefore, obsolete. Ours is digital, so superior to your version there is no contest.’
    ‘You’re speaking of the past, Mr McKnight,’ Nicholas said. His voice caused a stir, and Tōrin glowered briefly over his shoulder. Nicholas wondered whether Tōrin was happy to see him. ‘Here, tonight, the future is now. The TransRim CyberNet is already on-line in Russia where it has far exceeded our expectations within an exceptionally short time. Check with Tōrin-san, he has all the most up-to-date figures.’
    The younger man nodded stiffly. ‘I will be presenting the full range of statistics during dinner.’
    McKnight scowled. ‘You’re Nicholas Linnear, am I right? Well, Linnear, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t there a CyberNet already active in Russia? Who needs another one?’
    ‘Tōrin-san can answer that better than I can.’ It wasn’t strictly speaking true, but Nicholas needed to give Tōrin back some of the face McKnight had taken from him.
    ‘True enough, in Russia, the CyberNet was not first as it is in Southeast Asia, but that is irrelevant because it is the best,’ Tōrin said, right on cue. ‘It is fast gaining on the indigenous Relkom, which lacks the many proprietary features of the CyberNet that your American cyberjockeys came up with. The CyberNet’s bandwidth – that is, the amount of information that can be transmitted along it – is far greater than Relkom’s, or any other current net, for that matter. The CyberNet is already on-line there and in Southeast Asia with the Kami’s next-generation communication: digital video.’
    Nicholas spotted Sergei Vanov, a young black-haired man with a Slavic face and soulful eyes. He pulled the Russian over and, smiling winningly at McKnight, said, ‘Let’s hear it from the horse’s mouth.’
    ‘I don’t know about a horse, but this Russian’s in love with TransRim,’ Vanov said with a chuckle. As an inveterate cyberjockey, he loved Americanisms or any foreign jargon, for that matter. It made him feel relevant, like a part of the world community. ‘My country is particularly ripe for the CyberNet, because it is filled with people like me, twenty-first-century entrepreneurs who understand how valuable the Net is to them, even with only a cheap clone of the first-generation IBM-PC and a modem. All we need do is plug into the Net for a fee and wheel and deal without any governmental influence or regulation.’
    Nicholas spread his hands wide. ‘Imagine. They trade everything from crops of potatoes to trainloads of potash, from rights to a portion of a new Siberian oil pipeline, Ukrainian wheat, to Bulgarian fruit.’
    Tōrin nodded, at last warming to the one-two-punch offensive that Nicholas had devised. ‘Anything and everything is possible – all one needs is the hardware, a commodity with which to barter, the imagination to close the deal – and, of course, the CyberNet.
    ‘Electronic mail, the current darling of Net-jockeys, will soon be a thing of the past,’ Tōrin added. ‘Why type words into a computer when you can simply send the message via a video image? In our world, speed is of the essence. In that regard, nothing can beat a vid-byte. With the Kami one can word process, do update spreadsheets, downlink and uplink to office computers, receive and send vid-byte faxes and vid-mail, buy, sell virtually anything, transact business on all the financial bourses.’
    ‘So great, but will the digital vid-thing really work?’ McKnight said sourly. The wind had been taken out of his sails.
    ‘That,’ Nicholas said, ‘is why we’re all here tonight.’
    ‘I, for one, already applaud the CyberNet,’ Raya Haji said. He was a tall, dusky-skinned Muslim, the Singapore government’s representative. Nicholas had worked with