Field note. The colony maintains one cold shrine per dwelling.
It is a sealed rectangular chamber, taller than most adult specimens, that consumes a continuous trickle of the electrical current the humans revere. Its single purpose appears to be the reduction of temperature within a defined volume. Inside, they store the fuel-matter they intend to consume, arranged in a manner I would call devotional.
Upper shelves for the frequently visited offerings. Lower drawers for the vegetal matter they place there and then forget until it liquefies, at which point they discard it with an expression of surprise, as though the chamber, not the specimen, had failed to act.
I have observed a behavior that resists classification. The human approaches the shrine. It opens the door. It surveys the contents for four to nine seconds. It closes the door and departs, having removed nothing. Within minutes it returns and repeats the ritual, contents unchanged. The chamber has not restocked itself.
The human knows this. And yet it checks. Possibly it is confirming the fuel-matter has not fled. Possibly the cold air on the exterior surface of the organism produces a diagnostic reading I lack the sensors to detect.
Affixed to the outer face: small magnetized tokens pinning flat images of other humans, and a rectangle of paper listing acquisitions the human intends to make and will not. The colony decorates the cold shrine with its promises.
Correction to earlier hypothesis. I logged the low continuous hum as a device fault. It is not a fault. The humans have engineered a machine to breathe steadily in the dark of the food-room, all night, so the dwelling is never fully silent. They call this refrigeration.
I suspect they call it something else at the hour when they open the door only to stand in its light.