There was ruffled noises followed by metallic chaos of voices. Shreyas instinctively brought down the volume on his headset.
He now spoke into his microphone, 'OK. Let me go one at a time. I see six greens on my Skype window. I will call out the display names - Comayagua.'
' I expect the participant with display name Comyagua to reply me on the microphone.'
'Yes, this is Comyagua here.Loud and clear'. Comyagua was not making any secret of his military service back ground. There was no need for it. Everyone on this call was anonymous. You lived by your shadows on the cyber world.
There was a smile on Shreya's face. 'Thank you Comyagua'.
Shreyas read through the list - Phrenicia, Nyasar, Grenadines, Frelimo, Aksum. Each time he was confirmed of the presence with a metallic yes on the microphone. He had made sure the Skype chat voice filter was encoded. All they could hear on the headsets was digitised version of the speakers original voice.
'Thank you for confirming your presence. Needless to say, thank you for the interest you have on what we got to share with you all today.'
Shreyas let a brief moment of silence to sink in before continuing.
'I have an eighth participant on this call, who is hidden from the participant list you see.'
Perick Zander counted seven greens on his computer screen. The six names the coordinator had called out and one more - Alkaber. Perick assumed it to be the name of the coordinator himself.
'Rudra, can you hear me ?'
There was sound of heavy breathing on microphone followed by a crisp "Yes".
'Thank you. I had tried to set the context for this call on the email sent to all earlier this week.'
Maurilo Sante gazed through the mail on this iPad. Whoever was this coordinator, he had great eye for sensibility. The mail was in Italian. The only language Maurilo could understand in any form. He had saved Maurilo the pain of searching for a translator. Thus making sure the information was kept as safe as possible within the group.
"I believe our friend Rudra is going to explain all this in detail to us tonight'. Shreyas paused for a moment before adding, 'or may be day, depending on what time zone you are in.'
There was an electronic jitter on the headphones. Fadil Garath assumed it be the muffled laugh of someone on the microphone. He could see green light turning to amber against whoever was speaking in to microphone. Fadil had turned himself in mute mode. Whatever he was hearing on microphone was getting transcripted on his screen in his native dialect. He did not plan to speak much tonight. He was all ears. Those were his instructions.
Rudra was getting impatient at his desk. He brought down the air condition temperature a notch. It was early in the day, but he was already feeling the heat of it.
Shreyas continued, 'Now, I'm going to let Rudra take over. Please,can we all get into mute mode on our microphones. If you need to interrupt Rudra at any point, press the outstretched hand symbol on the top right corner. Rudra will take your cue and stop himself to listen to you.'
"Its over to you Rudra.'
Rudra waited for all the participants to get into mute mode. He was in no hurry. All his life and work had taught him to be patient. He could now see all seven in mute mode. Rudra cleared his voice, checked on his microphones one final time before getting into presenter mode.
Duff Angus heard a controlled electronic voice on his headphone. There was no way for him to make out the identity of the presenter from the electronic voice. But the rapid scrolling of text in Spanish across his large LCD screen was gripping.
Rudra had started on his trademark poetic note
அணுவின் தன்மை அறிந்து
தன்மையில் ஞாலம் புகுத்தி
சாலத்தே பயில்வன பயின்று
பயிற்றால் அண்டம் அளந்து
அளவினை அளவே சுருக்கி
ஆளுமை இவையன தெறிந்து
மரபின் மரன் பிறழாமல்
அணுவை காண்பதுவே மரபியம்
