Akkis walked through the lower tunnels with the lost daughter, along the new and novel paths that she had learned in the doing of this leading labor. The lost daughter followed imprecisely, in the manner of one who is not learning, and at times Akkis felt that her labors was the follower's, because the lost daughter was often beside her, searching, and was not behind her. This was a comfort to Akkis, who had warned the lost daughter against any eagerness to learn once they had left the lower tunnels, for if she had learned much and become needful of sleep, she would not make it to the Replete who waited above at the end of many crossing tunnels.
They passed from the lower tunnels where light was scarce and the scent of the Colony was thin. It was in the bustle and the multitude of scents in the middle tunnels that the lost daughter began to follow far behind. Akkis in her leading stopped at each fourth-and-none step, and found that she waited longer and longer for the lost daughter to touch her hindmost part and return to her following. The lost daughter stopped at every junction, and her eager feelers plcuked the many new scents that Akkis found noisome. They passed across the great veins where the single-labored workers of the middle tunnels formed their conduit-lines to carry food to the Queen's chamber far above.
The lost daughter's thoughts were lifted by the smell of such great labors in such variety, and she nearly abandoned her following, such was her eagerness to join them all. But Akkis tugged at her legs and gave her sharp warning, for the Colony's smell upon her was too weak for her to join these great labors before its fading. But the lost daughter's eagerness to learn of the labors of the middle tunnels had become a hunger in her thoughts, and so Akkis brought her to the conduit-lines for learning, so that the lost daughter would not smell of distress, which would also bring the attentions of sisters.
The lost daughter watched the conduit-lines, and in her watching, she learned of a good place for her to walk in sleep-travel where she could walk in closeness as they did, where she could have sisters behind her and before her, and where she would be sharing in a labor with so many. It seemed then to the lost daughter that within her thoughts there was an absence that could not be repelled by some labor, and this was a strange thing for her. She would have stayed there beside the conduit-lines, and sleep-traveled there, but she had come to these tunnels with a labor that had its own eagerness to be done.
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Akkis led the lost daughter alongside the conduit-lines them at a scentless distance, for she had learned in her early days that the Replete would be near to them. And when they entered the Replete's chamber that was lit with gold, and sweet-scented, Akkis felt the burden of her days weigh heavily on her, for it had been more than two seasons since her last visit to the good and shareful Replete.
The Replete was skilled in the labor of naming, for she had lost her own upon taking up the labor of repletion, and it was a wound in her thoughts that she had skillfully explored. From the roof she hung, her hindmost parts bulging with the Colony's food that was not meant for sharing, but for keeping. The lost daughter was afraid once then, for the labor of repletion had made the Replete very large, and in the pit she had well-learned the rules of size. But the smell that wafted from the Replete steadied the lost daughter's thoughts, for her scent was like the Queen's scent had drifted down into the pit, the scent that she had followed upward.
“Great and good Replete,” called Akkis, “I have led this daughter here in my labors. You are skilled in the labor of naming, and this daughter has been among many sisters with no name for sharing.”
The Replete brought her feelers, which were long as two-and-two steps, low to where the lost daughter trembled. “Come closer, daughter of the Queen,” she said. “I am skilled in naming, and to do this labor, I must learn of you.”
The lost daughter tapped all over Akkis with her feelers then, and Akkis led her closer to the Replete, though she herself was not cleaned of her fear. The Replete touched and smelled the lost daughter for the length of two feedings before she spoke again.
“Daughter, your smell is weak,” she said, without sending the lost daughter away. The learning she had gained in her labor of repletion was that of sharing and the filling of stomachs, and she had buried her learning of the soldier labors long ago. “I smell an eagerness to learn upon you, and no labors held to grant you the learning you seek. You have killed strange beasts, but you have not foraged. I smell upon you a comfort at the scent of our Queen, and this is good, because you will labor for her comfort also. I will tell you the story of Skith, who also sought her labor for our Queen which led her to the doing of great things. Skith will be your name then, and I will have completed my labor to you of naming, and it will be a joy in my chamber.”