As they neared Khyron's office, Chit tapped Zander on the shoulder and whispered into his
ear. After a few seconds, Zander chuckled, and they went in.

"Professor? [flick?]" Zander asked,  edging hesitantly towards the desk.

"What?" the squirrel behind the desk snapped, looking up form his computer screen.

"I... [chitter] I just wanted to know when you're going to have your lecture again, I'm
really interested in the --"

"Oh, I'm never doing it again. [shudder] I'm afriad you... students... will just have
to go listen to Zoe ramble about typhoid-ebola hybrids. [ruffle]"

"Oh." Zander drooped. "But --"

"Is that all? [flick?]"

"Well, sort of..."

There was a short flash as an unobtrusive electronic device in the corner of the office
exploded in a shower of sparks. Chit looked up from his computer. "Okay, you can stop now."

"Excuse me! [blink] Who --"

"Chit. [bounce] Glad to meet you."

"You're not Chit. [flick] You're about two inches two tall, for one thing."

"This is the other Chit, professor. I told him you were interested in the 
bunnyvirus. [flick]"

"Interested, yes." And indeed, he looked considerbly more interested than he had a second
before. "What do you want to know?"

"Mostly," Chit said, "Whether you'd be interested in doing a little research on the
subject."

Khyron glanced at the (burnt out) camera, then back at Chit. "What did you have in mind...
[suspiciousflick]"

"Have you ever observed a conversion?" Chit asked. "A *human* conversion, I mean."

"No, not as.. such... although I've -- um, no. [flick] It's against warren policy to
convert humans. The Mentat would have my tail."

"Well then, [flick] we'd better not tell him."

"We're good at keeping things secret. [flick]" Zander said.

"We have a volunteer... possibly volunteers, who want to be converted, but don't trust
the devilbunnies. I can't *imagine* why. [rolleyes] So they came to us. [flick]"

"And we'd kind of like them to live through it."

"So we need someone who knows about these things. [flick] But if you want to run any tests
of your own, we wouldn't stop you." Chit frowned. "Well, as long as they weren't dangerous."
Chit swished his tail around a little. "Well, maybe if they were a *little* dangerous..."

Khyron looked a bit confused. "Um... you'll need a sample of the *bunny*virus, you know.
The squirrelvirus won't work."

"Oh, we've got a sample. [flick]"

"Sort of," Chit said. "That's the other thing we'd like your help with."

"Sort of?" Zander and Khyron asked in unison (although with rather different inflections).

"Look," Chit said, "Before we go into the gory details, do you want to do this? [flick?]"

"You don't work for the bunnies, do you? [chitter]"

"[chatterspit!] No," Chit said, wrinkling his nose, "I don't."

"Or for Teral..."

Chit laughed. "Last I heard, no one worked for Teral. The bunnies got him. [flick]"

"Oh no," Zander said, "He got away."

"Really?"

"So who *do* you work for," Khyron asked, "because you *certainly* aren't working for 
Loren..."

"We're not working for anyone," Chit said, "We're just trying to help out some friends,
that's all. [flick]" Khyron looked dubious. "And they're giving us cashews."

"I hate cashews."

"Good," Chit said, "More for us. [flick] So are you in?"

"In?"

"Well," Chit said, "As you said, Loren wouldn't like it, so it's certainly a conspiracy.
[flick] Are you in? Or... out. [grinflick]"

The professor stared at Chit's grin for a second or two. "I'm in... I guess... [chitter]"

"Good. [flick] Now, there's something I need to ask you about..."