While the Replete told her story of the First Foraging, Akkis had watched the lost daughter while she was listening. Akkis had heard the story many times, for the story of Skith was learned by many in their early days. But the lost daughter had had upon her armor a strange scent during its telling. The lost daughter was made most afraid during Skith's return from the burrow after struggling with the God of Death and Eating, and yet her smell had seemed unafraid when ferocious beasts had threatened them. But as expected, she had smelled of great eagerness upon hearing the end of the tale when the Queen had been comforted.
Upon ending her tale, the Replete said to the lost daughter, “With the end of the tales of Skith, I will give you her name. Go now from my chamber and be known as Skith, for the scent upon you is that of the worker who sought her labors and found them in strange places.”
Many sisters around the Replete's chamber had brought close their labors of cleaning and carrying, doing them while they listened. They pressed close to hear the Replete's tale, for the story of Skith was familiar to them, and it was good to hear it. Akkis felt discomfort at their closeness, and soon urged the lost daughter to come away from the Replete's chamber.
The lost daughter's feelers were raised high then like two dry reeds, and she said to the Replete, “Is Skith a precise naming for me? I have learned that I am like Iki, the impostor who should have been repelled.”
Akkis was made afraid by Skith's words in the presence of so many others, but the Replete spoke with the wisdom she had gathered Inside. “In the seasons I have labored in sharing the food from my great stomachs to any who are needful, I have learned much that you with your few seasons lived have not. In you there is no scent to be repelled, for I smell in you a great eagerness to aid our Queen, as Skith did upon her return. And as she was led by a wise nest-keeper, so you are led by Akkis who has joined the labors of many sisters.”
The Replete said to Akkis then, “You will lead Skith, and tend to her thoughts in the manner of wise As-Atha.”
Akkis agreed, and she said to the Replete, “I smelled a strange thing in your tale. Where once in days past I seemed like to Skith, or As-Atha, or the Queen, I smelled now in myself only the beasts from Outside.”
The Replete said, “Your scent has the layers of many days past, and I have learned of your loose grip on your labors. You smell to me as the flower-fly who sought comfort in familiar things.”
But Akkis felt a discomfort as she said, “It seems to me that I am like the spider who faced the dangers of Outside with bared fangs.”
The Replete said, “That is a discomfort. You will not let it be a burden, worker Akkis. The spider is a beast, without labors, and you have done many.”
Together, Akkis and the lost daughter who had been named Skith left the Replete with full stomachs and stirred thoughts. Akkis led Skith at a distance past the conduit-lines, which Skith watched with new eagerness, for her thoughts dared to stray closer than before. No longer to Skith did the lines of workers in their labor of passing food seem inscrutable, and she found new learning from them. She learned of the cleaners who attended to the workers in the conduit-lines, and she drank in the scent of their labor, feeling it drag her thoughts toward them even as her legs moved away.
No longer was the Colony so strange and novel a place for her. Even as she returned with Akkis to their place of comfort in the lower tunnels, Skith was impatient and eager to find where she might labor with those above, with her feelers soaked in their busy scents. With much learning to be managed within her, sleep-travel came to Skith soon after, and it took her throughout the tunnels above, into the Queen's chamber where good scent would be strongest, and where her fears that she had brought from the pit's depths would be nearly silent.
In the days that followed her naming, Skith joined Akkis in her labors in the lower tunnels. They were not unlike the higher places where the conduit-lines were kept, where she would be surrounded on all sides by motion and scent and sound. But in the lower tunnels, the Queen's other daughters walked with distance between them, and always the air was faintly soured with fear. But the
scent of labors being done could be found there, and left her eagerness to take part in the Colony's works satisfied.
For half a season, Skith learned many labors in the lower tunnels. She saw Kass wiping away the moist clay that covered Tikka, and she learned. She watched quiet Ikit pick up tough leaves which she cut apart and made soft, and she learned. She learned of twining threads and stamping earth flat from watching Skatt and Tati who labored together often. There were many labors to find and learn, and Skith gathered of them all. In a short time she could do them wherever they were needed, and many in the lower tunnels then learned of the Queen's lost daughter who had been named Skith.
But some labors that she had learned she would not do. She saw Saka lifting the bodies of the dead. She watched also as Saka lifted Ittik, who had not died but had the death-smell upon her, and threw her into the pit like those who were dead. She learned these labors but did not take part, for they would take her near to the pit, where Skith would not go.
Many small beasts walked the lower tunnels, slipping between her legs. There were beetles who wore domed armor, lumbering snails that smelled of good labors, and small spiders with imprecise legs. Many other daughters were made discomforted by them, but Skith had learned of their kind in the pit and felt no fear of them, even when they took small pieces of the food she had lifted. She was large and they were small, and they were quick enough that she could not catch them. She had learned well the pit's rules of size and sound and speed, and the beasts at her legs were not to be feared. Some climbed upon her and rode from place to place, and Skith was not afraid, for the beasts were not heavy upon her and made quiet sounds that brought the Queen to her thoughts.
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One day, when Skith was sharing food with Aik who had five legs, she learned of a strangeness in the lower tunnels. As her familiarity with the Colony's scent had grown, so too had her learning of its finer qualities. And as she pulled her jaws away from Aik who was led by no other, she asked, “Aik who I have shared my food with, why is your scent edged with strangeness?”
Aik's feelers became still at hearing the question, and her response was sharp. “My scent is not strange, and has never been. It is your scent, Skith, that is unlike mine, and I wish not to smell it,” said Aik before she went away to clean in other places. But Skith trusted her learning and did not forget the strangeness she had smelled, for it was a strangeness she had smelled also in Akkis who was her leader.
She found Akkis later in their shared place of comfort, and she asked her, “Akkis who is my leader, you have a strange smell. I smelled it also on Aik who has five legs. What is this strange smell that is upon you both?”
Akkis, like Aik, held her feelers still at the question, and said, “Skith, you will not pursue strange smells in these lower tunnels where many strange things live. Learn of the labors we perform and make them your own, so that others will know the name the Replete has shared to you. Do not forget that your smell is the strangest of all, your smell that I still labor to bury with the scent of kissec from the Colony above. Evil hides in strange learning that others would repel—this learning is gathered from the tales of clever Yaka that I have shared with you.”
Skith knew that these were wise words from Akkis, who led her and fed her and had carried her from the edge of the pit, but she had made the learning of the strange smell upon Akkis her labor, and it could not be so easily discarded. Skith found herself putting aside her labors to others as she walked the lower tunnels then, and she would follow the strange smell wherever she found it.
Four times, Skith found nothing when she followed the smell, but she did become skilled in following it. She could find the smell between many others, finding it sweet like fruit or fresh kissec, but with a sharpness that stung her feelers. One day Skith found the smell strongly on Aik who had five legs, and she saw that Aik walked unsteadily. Aik drifted to her right side, often in circles, and Skith had little trouble in following her, with what she had learned of silence in the pit.
Aik drifted to a hidden place where sweetpinks had been left to rot, and the strange smell Skith had labored to learn of was strong upon them. Aik jabbed them with her jaws and the smell that spilled free made Skith's feelers curl in disgust, for it was like a poison to them. Aik drank of the foul liquid and saw Skith watching her.
Aik became afraid, but Skith did not know why. She asked Aik, “Why do you drink from those rotted sweetpinks? Surely with this poison you will bring the God of Death and Eating inside, and the death-smell will soon be upon you.”
Aik's response was slow and stumbling like her five legs had been. “This sweetness that should be rotten is comforting to me—my thoughts become simple and my fears are quiet. You, Skith, often have the tang of fear on you. You should let me share with you.”
But Skith refused, wanting nothing of the foul scent, and she left Aik with the rotted sweetpinks. She found Akkis then, fearful that Akkis had not learned of the source of such a foul scent that she had smelled before on her. But when she told Akkis of her learning, Akkis was not made afraid as Skith had expected.
“I too have shared that rotted sweetness, Skith. You are young and your thoughts are easily managed. You may one day have need of it, though it seems foul to you now. This is an evil thing you have found, for it is a smell that those in the tunnels above will not suffer. Many that you have labored with and labored for in these low tunnels were repelled to here when this scent was upon them.”
“Is that why you are here, so far from the Queen?” asked Skith.
“No, Skith, I am here because I no longer find comfort among the raucous daughters that surround the Queen. And now I can no longer live among the daughters above with this smell upon me.”
Having learned this, Skith took on a new labor. She walked from the low tunnels, following the path that Akkis had led her on to reach the Replete. She was eager to reach the Queen, who was wise and would surely allow Akkis into the tunnels above where Skith wished to be always. But in her eagerness, she had not stayed with Akkis to have the Colony's smell smeared freshly upon her armor. When she reached the noise and bustle of the tunnels above, she was quickly repelled. She was made very afraid as what had seemed to be her sisters, with whom she shared the colony, raised themselves high on their legs and screamed alarm and drummed the walls. Soldiers with very large heads and crushing jaws came to her, and they made to lift her and carry her away, and Skith felt her venom rising at their presence. Fear became loud in her thoughts and she hurried from the tunnels above back to Akkis below.
Akkis found her then, and she touched Skith's head many times with her feelers, for the fear upon her was strong and sharp. She had learned that fear should be quieted.
“Skith who came from the pit that holds many dangers, fear is strong upon you. What evil thing have you found that has done this to you?”
Skith told Akkis of the tunnels above and the labors of the other daughters to repel her and to lift her. “Skith,” said Akkis, “it was your eagerness that brought this evil upon you. Had you come to me that I could put the scent of the Colony upon you, you would have walked without risk.”
“I will never see the Queen and be among her scent,” said Skith. “There is an foulness in my smell that brings danger to the Colony. I have learned this from the soldiers who made to lift me, for soldiers protect the Queen from danger. I have the appearance of a daughter of the Queen, but I am a danger in the shape of a daughter, like Iki who was the God of Death and Eating in a changed shape.”
“That is not what I have learned,” said Akkis. “Many in these lower tunnels have learned your name, and that name is Skith, who went far from the Colony and did good labors. Why have you taken up this labor to reach the Queen?”
“The Queen is wise. I have learned this,” said Skith. “In her wisdom she would surely have you leave these low tunnels and live with her in the tunnels above.”
“There are few sisters who have seen our Queen,” said Akkis. “The Colony has no nest-keepers, and the soldiers repel any who are workers from her chamber.”
Skith's fear began to wane, replaced by a cold discomfort. Older learnings that she had gathered were unburied within her, and her thoughts became unquiet as they managed this upset. Her labors became imprecise, and this agitated her sisters. She found no comfort from them, and her learnings had no place to settle in her thoughts. They became heavy upon her, and soon she became needful of sleep for the first time in many seasons. She returned to the place of comfort where Akkis waited.
“You will sleep,” said Akkis. “In your sleep-travel you will find new learning, and it will clump together your unsettled thoughts. I will share with you of the Gods, that you may learn of their great labors that we have all joined, from the Queen in her jeweled chamber to the smallest beasts between our legs.”