Once edited, the bulletin was broadcast at precisely five fifty eight am GMT daily, via humongous thought-amplifying transmitters located in the basement of the offices. On leaving Fleet Street, the information would flow freely throughout the underground world of the dragons, using massive crystal boosters on a local level, each individual one powered by geothermal energy. After it had been made available on that day, it was then stored in much smaller crystals throughout the land, so that those who had missed the original transmission through either sleep or work, could catch up. A typical Daily Telepath bulletin consisted of the main news story (either dragon or human, occasionally the same story but from the two different points of view) usually with a bold headline. Global weather warnings played a part... typhoons, blizzards, tidal waves, that kind of thing. Sport was also on the agenda. Not human sport of course... what dragon on the planet would want to know about that? None of course. No, we're talking about dragon sport, and in particular... LAMINIUM BALL! There also featured a letters section where dragons could air their feelings, as well as an obituary column where dragon death notices were placed. This was one of the most important functions of the bulletin as dragons rarely die, but when they do their kin, and of course their friends and colleagues, travel far and wide for the normally extravagant funeral proceedings. Coverage of the Council's activity normally featured high on the list of what the dragon in the street wanted to know, while the king himself normally took something of a back seat unless there was a special occasion of some sort.
It seemed to work quite well for the most part, with dragons often being overheard in both their human and natural form discussing the day's events from the bulletin. Recently the Telepath had been experimenting with images and had tried incorporating them, with varying degrees of success. These experiments had taken the form of black and white pictures, but by the time the bulletin had reached the readers, information drop out had caused the pictures to become blurred and unrecognisable. They hadn't given up though, with dragons right at this very moment working on how best to incorporate pictures so that regular readers could get a glimpse of their favourite laminium ball players scoring, winning that vital point. The future was not that far off.
George's mind, having wandered off, was brought back to the room by hearing Axus finish off telling the king about the projection system.
"So you see Majesty, this was the only way to use the boosters in that area and keep the transmission secure. We certainly don't want every dragon in the world viewing the captives on their way to Antarctica, do we?"
"Not with some of Troydenn's followers still unaccounted for, no we don't," replied the king gravely.
Axus clapped his hands to get everyone's attention.
"Could you all move to the centre of the room please, as that's where you'll get the best view of all four projections."
Turning to one of his subordinates, Axus ordered,
"Dim the lights and start the projectors please."
Everyone gathered in the centre, most still choosing to stand. Osvaldo, though, was conspicuous by his absence. Abruptly the room plunged into darkness, before the walls came alive with moving images that took George a little while to process.
On the main wall, the one he thought of as 'in front', was an image from the middle of the pack, showing dragons left, right, above and below, all flapping their gigantic wings, propelling themselves along. It was just possible to make out the tightly fitting harnesses they all had strapped on, each able to transport one, two or three sedated dragons in human guise. Nearly all of the visible prehistoric beasts carried three unwilling prisoners.
On the left wall the view was clearly from a dragon flying at the back of the pack, high up on the right hand side. It showed all of the dragons and their cargo from above, moving at break-neck speeds through a large open cavern.
On the right wall the view was from a dragon skimming along the surface, underneath the left side of the flight. As this particular winged behemoth looked up, he could see giant underbellies with prisoners strapped to them, bones and muscles in the dragons' wings working furiously to keep them aloft, speeding them along at nearly five hundred miles an hour.
Behind, the scene showed the convoy from quite some distance back. The dragon projecting this image must have been trailing the group by about a mile and a half, with the group only really showing up as small dots, ones which appeared in corresponding shades and positions to those in the convoy. The carried captives weren't visible at this range.
Those gathered in the control room all seemed to have a different idea about which was the best projection to view the proceedings from, the majority watched the main wall, with a few looking at the side views, while even fewer flicked between the different images, just like George. Currently the limited light in the cavern made the convoy look like stars in a dusky night sky.
Progress was slow, but dragons were renowned for their patience and understanding. Even so, the events unfolding today were testing this, almost to breaking point. Everyone watching knew that this was only the start of the epic journey. The convoy's underground route involved flying south west from Europe, towards Africa's eastern coast. Once there, the dragons would head south under the coast until they reached the capital of Sierra Leone, Freetown. Turning south west again, they would then fly beneath the south Atlantic for about three thousand miles, before arriving under the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Following the coast of Uruguay, they would head towards Buenos Aires in Argentina, then turn directly south towards the Falkland Islands before joining the huge trench there, following it all the way to the containment facility. In all the entire journey was over eleven thousand miles and would take about twenty two hours in total.
"So far the convoy has flown under the Mediterranean and along the coast of Morocco," piped up Axus, tearing away the silence of the last few minutes. "They have just passed beneath Casablanca and shortly you will see from the projections, increased magma activity as the group skirt around the newly reopened geothermal power plant in the Canary Islands."
From his preferred view, the long distance one, George could see that the bottom of the cutting now being traversed by the party was growing increasingly bright. Giant slivers of molten lava weaved along the floor and lower part of the walls, making it look as though a massive spider had spun a mammoth fluorescent web.
Like all dragons, George knew everything there was to know about geothermal power; he had after all spent months studying it in the nursery rings. Subterranean dragon cities were all heated using geothermal power, and had been for many centuries. Vast underground areas had also been specifically heated to exacting temperatures, so that a diverse range of crops could be grown all across the world, acting as giant greenhouses. Although all of this was amazingly clever, advanced and interesting, most dragons' favourite part of the geothermal process was the HOT SPRINGS...
Ahhhhhh.
Just thinking about hot springs made George's tail twitch in delight, despite the fact that he was currently in his human form, a tail of course nowhere to be seen. That didn't stop the twitching though. Whatever form he was in, George remained convinced that a dragon's tail was like its soul, always there. So much so, that sometimes he even had to look behind him to check that he wasn't dragging it along the ground when he was disguised as a human. This thought, it must be said, was totally private and not something he would ever want other dragons knowing, for fear of ridicule.