In the lower tunnels of the Colony, where the unfit and inexact did their unclean work, there was no quiet, for The Gods Inside did not come to those places to bring a silence to them.

Akkis labored there, where she had done so for four seasons, and her armor was dark. She had joined a labor of war-making two seasons ago, and since that labor she had not been beside the Queen and done the labors of the upper tunnels. When her labor of war-making was ended, she had gone downward into the lower tunnels, because she had suffered many troubles Outside, and she would not burden the grand labors of the Colony with the foulness of her wounded thoughts.

Since coming to the lower tunnels, her labors had been simple. She did not often do them with eagerness, for she felt that her times of great and good labors were behind her. Her thoughts did not travel far, but this seemed a good thing to her, because without the vastness of Outside and the goodness of above, her small labors of cleaning and feeding did at times seem grand things to be shared by many in the crowded chambers beneath the Colony.

One day, after she had finished with four-legged Hik in the cleaning of her middle part, she felt a weakness in her own legs. Those in the lower tunnels struggled often against the Bad Air, a sickness that was left whenever the Wind God escaped from deep places. Helpful Akkis had felt the weight of the Bad Air upon her five times in the lower tunnels, and so had learned precisely of the small warnings of its coming. The pit that opened to the lowest place had a harsh but healthful scent which could clean her insides of the Bad Air, and so also clean her thoughts of its burden.

It was then that Akkis came across the Queen's lost daughter, who was still and flat on the floor at the pit's edge. It seemed to Akkis at first that she had found a worker like herself who had come too late to be cleaned of the Bad Air beside the pit, but as she drew closer to the Queen's lost daughter, she had found something of which she had not learned. She tasted the air carefully, and did not find death-smell around her. It brought some eagerness to her. She was learning then, for she had come to see a stranger, a worker in the lower tunnels whose armor was neither fouled with sickness nor broken, though it had many marks upon it. The Queen's lost daughter still had the bright armor of youth, but Akkis did not learn of it then, because the filth of the pit covered it wholly.

At first the Queen's lost daughter would not allow herself to be cleaned. She could not bear such closeness, for her armor had not yet learned of the touch of feelers upon it. Again and again Akkis came near to clean her, and with feeble clatters from her jaws the Queen's lost daughter struggled to repel Akkis and keep these labors undone.

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Akkis waited beside the Queen's lost daughter until she was hungry. She had learned little of the labors of the tending of young, which was the work of the Nest-Keepers high above beside the Queen. Unable to bear her hunger and unwilling to leave the young daughter, Akkis lifted the stranger she had found, so that she could carry her to her place of comfort that she shared with her sisters. The Queen's lost daughter shook terribly when she was lifted, and her jaws held Akkis then with painful tightness that was neither gentle nor harsh, with none of her thoughts reaching and all of them gathered.

It took the effort of five sisters to restrain the Queen's lost daughter and pry her jaws from Akkis's armor. For five days, Akkis kept the stranger bound by threads that were brought to her by her sisters, for the Queen's lost daughter would not be still and clattered at any who came to learn of her strangeness. Akkis was burdened by this, for the lost daughter's scent was always stained by terrible fear that soured the air of the tunnel and drove away all but the most curious.

Akkis made her plan then, and it would be finished when many labors that were larger than feeding and cleaning were done, so that the lost daughter would be a sister beside her and not a stinking thing that fouled her place of comfort.

After returning from her labors in the low tunnels, Akkis found that the bindings had become slackened, for the lost daughter no longer pulled them, such was the weakness from her hunger. But the lost daughter refused the food of the young, the kissec nectar that was gifted from the higher chambers where it was made. Akkis shared tough old meat and long-dried fruit, and the lost daughter did eat eagerly like the worms that roamed in moist places Outside. But it did not seem then to Akkis that her labor was complete, for she had learned in her own youth of a daughter's need for kissec and the steadiness it brought to one's legs.

Eager to complete her labor, Akkis thought to pass the food she had eaten, which would be soft like kissec, to the young daughter. But when she opened her jaws to share her food, Akkis was met with a very harsh bite.

Akkis nearly dropped the lost daughter, for this bite seemed to her like a killing bite, and she had learned that these were never to be brought upon a sister of the Colony. But the venom that follows the killing bite did not come, and so Akkis persisted in her feeding, even with the lost daughter's jaws still tight around her own. Steadily, gentle effort, Akkis fed the lost daughter, until her sharing-stomach was empty and the Queen's lost daughter was no longer hungry, and all her thoughts were gathered at the tips of her jaws beside where the lost daughter's had remained for five days since being carried.

Having succeeded in her labor, Akkis felt bold, and was eager to continue. But the daughter's scent was still fearful. Akkis's thoughts followed them when they fled from hers, far into the past to a time when her own fear had been as potent. She remembered then the stories the Nest-Keepers had shared to her, and thought to share them then.