She rose with a surprising grace and retreated from the room. Andrin watched her go in mild astonishment, then pulled her attention back to the ongoing discussion, sipping cocoa, listening, and jotting down occasional questions or ideas. At length, the mantle clock chimed the half-hour, and her father signaled for silence and turned to Alazon Yanamar.
The Privy Voice sat in a waiting attitude, eyes closed, clearly Listening for the incoming message from First Director Limana. Or, rather, from the chain of Voices between Tajvana and the Privy Council Chamber. The arrangements and coordination required for Voices to relay over truly lengthy distances could be unbelievably complicated, especially at a time like this, when individual, totally secure links had to be maintained between the Portal Authority in Tajvana and every national capital on Sharona. Not even the EVN could maintain a real-time link to the various colonial governments, since no Voice could communicate with another through a portal. But Andrin knew that there were other chains of Voices, stretching down the transit chains between universes, to provide the fastest message turnaround humanly possible.
Then Yanamar's eyes opened so suddenly Andrin actually twitched in shock.
"Your Imperial Majesty," the Privy Voice said, in a deep, rich voice filled with subtle tones, one so beautiful Andrin would have given all the silly baubles in her jewel box to possess its equal. "First Director Limana has begun the Conclave. The Portal Authority's Head Voice, Yaf Umani, is transmitting what he sees and hears."
Her voice shifted suddenly. It took on not simply a different timbre, but a different rhythm and accent as she repeated the words of a man a quarter of the world away. That was remarkable enough, but what stunned Andrin was the projection that abruptly appeared at the far end of the room. It was a three-dimensional image of a man standing at a podium in a room she'd never seen. There were others present, seated between themselves and the speaker, and a map of the newly discovered portals hung behind him. The man at the podium was looking right at them, even though he couldn't possibly have actually seen them.
Andrin had always known Voices could receive and transmit detailed images of actual events, but less than one Voice in ten thousand could actually project those images for non-telepaths to see. Despite her birth, she herself had seen that particular Talent used exactly once, when the universe-famed Projective Falgayn Harwal had visited the Imperial House of Music here in Estafel. She still shivered inside when she remembered how Harwal and his dozen highly-trained, powerful assistant Voices, had filled the entire Opera House with a projection of the New Tajvana Chior's eight thousand singers and voices.
But Harwal was unique, the sort of Talent who arose perhaps once every two hundred years. Although Andrin had always known there were others with the same ability, if only on a far smaller scale, she'd never actually seen it done. Not this closely and intimately. No wonder Alazon Yanamar was her father's Privy Voice! Her Talent must be indispensable to a man who governed an Empire that covered several major islands and most of a continent.
She wondered if the Portal Authority's Head Voice could do this, as well. Probably, she decided. Then Yanamar's voice dragged her attention back to the meeting underway.
"Honored heads of state of the sovereign nations and colonies of Sharona and the various advisory councils and board members with you. For those of you who have never personally met me, I am Orem Limana, first Director of the Sharonian Trans-Temporal Portal Authority. In that capacity, I thank you for joining this Conclave. May we have a roll call of official members of the Conclave, please?"
Yanamar' recitation didn't quite match the movement of Limana's lips, but it was incredibly close. It was almost uncanny watching the eerie projection and listening to Yanamar's voice repeating the words of the man speaking in a room three thousand miles away.
The Privy Voice repeated a seemingly endless list of names as First Director Limana proceeded alphabetically down the official roster of nations and colonies. Andrin watched the map of Sharona as he spoke, trying to fix the names of various heads of state in her mind, but she had to give up within moments. She uncapped her pen once more and made her first note of the Conclave: Memorize the names of every head of state on Sharona and our colonies. She looked down at it, and, after a moment's consideration, added, And their heirs, if they're monarchies, and their seconds in command, regardless of what form of government they have.
She managed not to groan as she contemplated the size of that task, but it wasn't easy.
Once the First Director had completed the daunting task of merely determining that everyone was listening, he turned to the reason he'd summoned the Conclave in the first place.
"I'll begin by reminding every person participating in this Conclave that the news of this attack is to be considered a level-one secret under the Portal Authority Founding Charter, at least until such time as the family members of those killed, wounded, or captured in it have been notified about what's happened to their loved ones. Official Portal Authority representatives are en route even now, taking word to each of the survey crew's members' immediate families.
"I would further ask that this news not be made public until such time as this Conclave has formulated a plan to ensure Sharonian security in the Karys Chain and its approaches. The more we can do to reassure the public at the same time we finally break the news, the less panic is likely to ensue. Are we agreed on that point?"
Andrin's father nodded, and the Privy Voice transmitted his response. Again, a lengthy delay ensued before the Portal Authority's director spoke again.
"Thank you. I deeply appreciate your promised discretion in this matter."
He cleared his throat. It was the first sign of nervousness?if that was what was?he'd displayed, and Andrin was deeply impressed by his apparent sang froid.
"Very well," he said, "the purpose of this Conclave is to meet the current emergency. The Portal Authority will be intimately involved in that process, but the Authority is primarily an organizational tool, one which was never designed to handle this kind of emergency. Bearing that in mind, I'll begin the Conclave by bringing you up to speed on my responses and decisions to date. Once I've done that, I'll request specific guidance from the members of the Conclave on the best course of action until we can convene a face-to-face Conclave.
"And before anyone protests, please let me assure you that we will need a second Conclave. We must devise a permanent, long-range structure of governance to effectively mobilize, organize, and deploy Sharona's military and civilian resources. That's going to require lengthy, direct, pragmatic, and flexible decision-making, and we can't do that in a meeting format like this one. I would suggest Tajvana as the place to hold that face-to-face meeting. The Portal Authority is headquartered here, and Tajvana has been a world capital in the past. As such, the city is well equipped with the infrastructure to handle large diplomatic and security delegations.
"If there are no objections to Tajvana as the site of the second Conclave, I'll have my staff contact each of you to arrange a date on which as many of you as possible can attend. We'll work out the details, schedule the meeting, and arrange appropriate meeting space?perhaps in the old Calirath Palace?as rapidly as we can. I'll inform you of our final arrangements, work out travel schedules, and make Voice arrangements to give any of you who simply cannot personally attend the best access possible. Are there any objections?"