A trio of squirrels jumped and scurried from tree to tree, heading back to
base after a long day's search.

"What were they doing?" Kara asked. Chit shrugged, but the mentat (of sorts)
answered.

"Humans' spines are poorly designed. What you saw was a medical procedure
 designed to alleviate pain and stiffness caused by standing erect."

"Please," Chit said in disgust, "It's a mating ritual, not a medical 
 procedure." Zaphod [flick]ed angrily.

"I assure you, research clearly indicates --"

"Research, shmesearch. My last mission was spying on the rebels -- you know,
 Sylvie and her group? They had a human along, and the two of them talked
 for hours and hours and hours..." he sighed, "Didn't seem to do much of 
 anything else, actually. They *certainly* weren't a threat."

"Is that why you abandoned the mission?" Kara asked.

Chit glared back. "I abandoned the mission because they were all dead. It's
a miracle that I survived myself. But can we get back to *this* mission now?"

"Of course," the mentat grumbled.

"Please tell me that you saw more than that one squirrel."

"Not me."

"No."

"And I doubt he'd be much use, anyway. Did you see how frightened he was? He
 didn't even try to challenge us, and we walked right through his territory."

"I was counting rather heavily on finding local squirrels to assist me in my
 experiment. If there aren't any more in the city, we'll have to search the
 countryside."

"Could we call for backup?"

"We barely got across the border undetected as it was," Chit said, chittering
softly as he remebered the close call. "And that was just the three of us."

"I mean from the response team in Indiana. [flick] They're supposed to stay
 hidden unless there's an emergency, but you said this mission was 
 important..."

"Well, if we need to we can do it ourselves," Chit suggested.

"No," Zaphod said, "We can't. But I'd rather not compromise a response team
 if we can help it. We'll just have to look harder."