Greater Than rolled his eyes in exasperation, and turned again to his task. And was interrupted once again as Strikeout asked, “So what else is in that pack? That we should know about?”

Greater Than puffed in exasperation and looked up, pointing the knife at Strikeout, Euro and Plus for emphasis. “Nothing you need to know about. Unless I say so.”

“Medicine,” Point interjected calmly. “As you saw. Tools. Like that knife. Navigation and signal gear. Food.”

That pricked up ears all around. Point gestured dismissively as Greater Than looked at him, disgusted. “Concentrated rations. Nothing appetizing, but enough to feed us for four days, I’d estimate. So you don’t have to worry about if for that long. Plus however long it would take for us to starve to death.”

“I hope that satisfies you,” Greater Than snapped. “You’re being taken care of in spite of yourselves. Now shut up and let’s see what’s inside this holy sign from on high.”

The notched spine of the knife slid easily through the woody nutshell as he sawed the top off. The instant it pierced the shell we smelled an exotic, tantalizing bouquet of odors from the contents. Nostrils widened and eartufts sprang forward all around the circled flock.

The top of the nut fell off and rolled away as Greater Than stared at the firm white meat inside the acorn. Holding the knife at an awkward angle, he scooped some out with the tip. He held it close and sniffed deeply, as did we all. He used his fingerclaws to dip up a tiny amount and place it at the very edge of his lips. We breathlessly anticipated any episode similar to what had befallen Stroke, but nothing scary rewarded our attention. So we awaited the next test.

“There should be a test kit in the third compartment down on the right,” Point said. “We might be able to find out…”

But Dollar, a brash younger with the chestnut coat and smudged markings that suggest an administrative career, had picked up the sawn-off top of the nut and pried out the thin cake of meat from inside it. “Let me tell you,” he said offhandedly, “I’m so hungry I don’t care if it’s poison or not.”

He held it under his nose and sneered at Greater Than. “Concentrated rations?” he snorted scornfully. “Am I the only one here who can smell this stuff?” He took a big bite out of the slab of nut meat.

There were a few gasps from the females, but most of us just stared avidly as he chewed and swallowed. Turning to horror as he grimaced in terror and pain and fell thrashing and yowling to the ground.

Greater Than dropped the acorn, but I noticed he tucked the knife into his harness even as he dashed over to jerk Dollar off the ground. He clutched the little bureaucrat to his chest and squeezed him spasmotically, obviously trying to expel the nut cake from his throat. Dollar’s eyes opened and looked into his as he said, “I love you, too, biggie. But I was just tugging your whiskers. That stuff’s delicious.”

He was hurled to the ground as the tension broke in us; half laughing at his risqué joke, the other half berating him. He rolled over and looked around, smirking. “Tastes kind of like mustole. But more… I don’t know… wilder.”

Star laughed, but bent over to bop him on the head for clowning with us.

He got to his feet, wincing. “More assertive flavor, you know? With sarcastic undernotes.”

What followed was, of course, an orgy of acorn gluttony. Greater Than, unwilling to allow the knife out of his hands, thus put himself in the disagreeable position of serving us, sawing the tops off acorns we brought in from our hasty searches under the canopy of The Oak. “Why not just chop them in half?” At asked him. “Less trouble.”

“Because we can carry water in them,” Greater Than answered as he sawed through a somewhat moldy nut Euro had lugged up to him. “To store it.”

That concept sent several of us running down to the lake carrying emptied acorns, and lugging them back full of water. Tilde placed several of these in a protective gnarl at the base of The Oak, carefully replacing their caps to keep the water clean. Comma goggled at them, sitting there waiting our thirst. “Like nascent days,” she murmured. “Seeds bearing water.”

Silly as any other Ascension nonsense, but it still rang familiar to me. Some of our most ancient writings reverently invoked by this unlettered factionalist. Vessels of water: an early step in our primordial Descent from treelimbs to the plains.

Meanwhile, the other nuts were being happily swigged between bites of acorn meat, the scene resembled a picnic with everyone sitting on the clean mat of oak leaves, eating, drinking and radiating a sense of general well-being. Kits, now fed and free to romp, did so with contagious glee.

Star poured three of the caps full of water, handing one to Carat and one to Comma. She held her own up to them, grinning. “Worth a salute isn’t it?”

Each doe touched their cup to hers and drank solemnly as she said, “To safe arrival,” and several of us applauded.

Comma passed her cup to Underscore, turned a very serious gaze to the company and said, “It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

“What is?” asked Semi, so often the leading ingénue.

Dollar, sipping from another of the acorn cups, laughed out loud. “If we don’t know, then it isn’t all that obvious, is it?”

Unfazed, Comma clutched the original fallen acorn between her lower breasts and said, “This is where we’re supposed to live.”

A pause followed that announcement. Greater Than looked around the area, noting the viewing advantage and shelter from the woods provided by the treetrunk, and nodded approvingly. Carat stared around with her perpetual wonder, dazzled that this lovely spot would become her residence. Point also nodded at what had been spoken to auspiciously to really be a suggestion. Underscore lay back and gazed up into The Oak. “Life in the trees. Here for us, today.”

Lesser Than, a little roan cultist with fawn tips and blaze, followed his leader’s gaze upward with a little more trepidation. “These aren’t like real trees, are they?” he asked timorously. “All the branches are way up there. How would we climb them?”

Before Underscore could roll out some pronouncement Greater Than brayed with the first genuinely humorous laughter I’d ever heard from him. “You tree-humpers are something,” he said between braying laughs. “You get kicked out of the world for wanting to live up in the leaves, and now when you have to you can’t figure out how to do it.”

Which was funny enough that most of the non-Ascensionist joined in the laughter. I smiled myself at the idea of the self-righteous sheep singing the praises of return to primal nature, then quailing at actually being exposed to it. The laughter swelled, and not in a good-natured way, as the Ascension glared around and pouted.

Underscore raised his hand, as usual trying to emulate a revered stone statue. He got the lull he wanted, though, his retinue attentive from respect and the rest hoping for another tasty bit of pompousness to scoff at.

“What you just said…” he directed his portentous gaze at Greater Than, who merely motioned for him to get on with it so he could laugh some more. Or possibly slap somebody’s head around backwards.

“You’re right.”

That stunned everyone who’d ever had the tedious experience of listening to Underscore’s constant orations. I had never heard him say anything that wasn’t a sermon of sorts, delivered with that maddening certainty and self-importance that apparently grips fanatics in other races, not just our own.

“You assessed us, and we are inadequate. Unprepared for the life and task we profess.”

Greater Than shrugged absently. It was a hard point to argue with, actually.

“But we can rise to this opportunity. I have realized something today. It is no calamity that we are delivered to this strange world. And no accident.”

I assumed I could guess where his ponderous speech, ignored by everybody except his own flock, was leading but was surprised to see Point jerk around and stare sharply at him. Point, who had actually forbidden Underscore to rant within his hearing on the ship. I paid closer attention.

“We sought to withdraw from the lower depths of our degeneration. And we have indeed been delivered.”

That triggered a burble of nodding and ecstatic grunts among his co-cultists, and I had to say, that part of their collective vision had been fulfilled. It was hard to envision a more rural, non-mechanistic situation than where we found ourselves at present. This could certainly look like heaven to the civilization-phobic Ascension.

“We sought the heights,” he intoned, reaching out for more ears. “We sought natural purity and the cleansing grace of the trees.”

His people were swaying in their disturbing little harmony, crooning their idiot syllables to one another. But again… nobody could argue with what he was saying.

“And look around you now,” he continued triumphantly. “We have arrived. We sit at the very feet of the destiny we implored. Look about you and witness the accomplishment of Higher Nature!”

Well, he lost my agreement with the last line, no matter how impressively and sonorously he rolled it out. “Nature” is a field, not an object. But you could see that he was getting more attention and maybe even shreds of respect from everyone. I glanced at Point for his further reaction, but he blew on is whiskers derisively and turned back to sharing an acorn cup of nutmeat with Semi.

Greater Than broke the spiritual lift of the moment with the harsh bark of his normal humorless laugh. “Does that mean you’re going to learn how to take care of yourselves?”

He drew more laughter with that remark, but Comma rose and walked over to offer him another helping of nutmeat. As he took it she held her iconic acorn out in front of her and glanced up into the tree.

“I think you have to admit,” she said quietly. And the laughter died down.