h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Were they such geniuses that they invented space travel?" Peregrine exclaimed.

"Not at first. They meant to move to another land to start their own society. However, just then a stroke of good luck happened: a hole in the space-time continuum [which we won't go into detail about, since no one wants the squirrels to know] allowed them to learn from the greatest minds in their world or, perhaps, in all time. Between their own genius inventions and the help of these other minds, they acquired the means to escape to Nibiru/Marduk.

"They visited Earth periodically to keep in touch with what was going on. On one visit, some squirrels got on board with acorns and other nuts. They hid away in nooks and crannies on our planet, growing hidden forests which supplied them with food. They found a way to access some of the advanced Mardukian technology, and grew in intelligence themselves. Add to this their native obsessive hunting abilities and their fast breeding, and you won't be surprised to learn that they began to overwhelm Nibiru/
Marduk. This led to a series of Squirrel Wars."

"Have you killed them all?" Faun asked softly. She was known to have a soft heart even for animals who seemed to have no redeeming features.

"Any that were killed became part of our food supply. The rest were given an ultimatum: return to Earth or die. We think they all chose Earth over death. Have they taken over Earth yet?"

"We're holding our own against them," I said. "They seem to be spying on us, though." .

"You have better predators than we have," the man said. "We'd like you to meet our coordinator of interplanetary squirrel control while you're here. He'll be along in a minute. You'll see how beautiful and well-appointed our planet is. We are very proud of it."

[I apologize for having two consecutive doses of exposition. I realize that this is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Soon we will resume the car chases and squirrel dive-bombing runs.

I'm afraid I'm rooting for the squirrels.

Nutshell 13 is finished, and will provide plenty of action and intrigue.

Dmitri, I can't remember whether you are in Pennsylvania or North Carolina now -- or even somewhere else. Pennsylvania has some virgin stands of oak. North Carolinians are fond of oaks.

I focus on oaks because squirrels play a key role in planting them.

We're in western Pennsylvania now. We used to be in North Carolina.

And yeah, there's some climax forest quite near here.

We had a LOT of squirrels in North Carolina. In fact, I knew a man in western North Carolina who used to have a squirrel relocation programme...he kept threatening to paint their tails red, because he swore they kept coming back...

Here, we have a militant red squirrel who chases all the other squirrels away. Territorial, that one.

The Persian squirrels who populate the Middle East are on the small side, and they have both gray and red coloring.