​     10K.

     Delphi received a signal from one of his security officers. 

     He accessed the officer's helmet-cam to see what the officer saw. 

     And what Delphi saw was impossible.

     He saw another offficer...

     lying on the floor/ground where Hrrm's Hive connected with The Cellars. 

     Her skull looked smashed. 

     Her blood seeped to pool into the dust.

     Impossible.

     In all the decades Delphi controlled Hrrm's Hive, he'd never once lost an officer or a slave unless he personally had them killed.

     He observed every move anything in Hrrm's Have made. A spider didn't weave a web unless Delphi knew about it, and yet...

     Of course, he'd been concentrating a lot of his attention on the newest shipment of symbiote virgins from Galryn 7, but, still, he was an egri. He could, had to, focus his attention on several hundred things at once.

     Delphi reviewed the fallen officer's helmet-cam footage.

​     He saw The Cellars.

​     He saw refuse. 

​     Refuse and people. 

     People of all ages.

​     The people of The Cellars. 

     The lowest of the low.

     So low, they rarely, if ever, rose to the surface...

​     and they were never allowed into Hrrm's Hive proper.

     They dwelled where they could find to live in the underworld of underground Seatrailia, The Cellars, where cities got built on top of cities on top of cities for thousands of years and where now only tunnels and catacombs existed. They scrounged and they starved and they bred and they died. That's all they did.

     Any of them try to make their way into Hrrm's Hive itself, they would be instantly eradicated. 

     They were beneath notice. 

     Delphi's officer wandered amongst these people, stun-wand at the ready, laser pistol at her hip. Delphi scanned her personnel file. Cremal of Banklip. Cruel race. Sadistic. Merciless.  

     Effective officers. 

     Cremal seemed to be in search of someone to hurt. 

     Something draped in blue crossed the corridor in front of Cremal...

​     or someone. 

     It stood roughly half the size of a grown human.

     It scurried in front of Cremal, then dove down a gap in the flooring.

     What species stood that high? Delphi scanned his files. There was an arachnid species that grew to that size, but the way it moved wasn't like an arachnid. 

​     Delphi zeroed in on one of the murderer's feet. All he needed was a glimpse of any part of the murderer's body, and he'd be able to discern what kind of creature it was. 

     The feet were wrapped in something, though, cloth and something else. Delphi's scanners had no problem seeing through cloth, yet they couldn't see through ​this cloth. 

     Delphi observed what happened next. 

​     Cremal heard something and followed what she heard into The Cellars.

     Delphi accessed Cremal's audio receivers. 

     What Cremal heard was singing.

     Singing? Intriguing. 

     Delphi analyzed and could glean no information from the audio other than it was a human voice that sang. Obviously, the voice had been filtered through some sort of masking technology that changed it enough to make it undetectable. Another impossibility. No one from The Cellars could possibly have the resources to purchase technology sophisticated enough to scramble Delphi's sensors, and yet...

     He analyzed the song itself. 

​     The result did more than intrigue him this time. 

     It astonished him.

     It was a lullaby this creature sang, something a mother would sing to her child.

     The lullaby astonished him because of where it derived.

     It was an Azurian lullaby. 

​     This murdering creature was, in any manner, an Azurian?

     It had never occurred to Delphi that any Azurians dwelled in The Cellars.

     The Azure were the most respected humanoid race in the multiverse.

     The most highly evolved.

     The finest warriors.

     In all the time Delphi controlled Hrrm's Hive, he'd never once had a member of the Azure as a guest. People rarely even saw members of the Azure, not in the flesh. If anyone saw them at all, it was in their Azure armor as Azure soldiers.

     That blanket, that protective covering, the murderer hid under. Not just blue. Sky blue. 

     Azure.

     And this creature sang an Azurian lullaby.

     Delphi found he couldn't  access the actual assault itself. One moment, the helmet picked up every move Cremal made, the next it didn't. Delphi saw Cremal next through the other officer's helmet-cam, the officer who'd discovered Cremal, and by then Cremal's skull had already been smashed. 

     And where was this creature now?

     Back in the bowels of The Cellars, no doubt.

     Delphi didn't have a mouth so much as he had a maw, but, if he did have a mouth, he would have smiled right then.

     This day is turning out to be very interesting, he thought. I'll get you, whoever you are. I'll track you down and squash you if it's the last thing I do today.

     Then, from Appointments: "Grelock the Great will be here within the hour, and he expects the full treatment!" 

END OF CHAPTER ONE

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