"Not yet. But—"
Above, the voice of Gant Nerley came back. Dusty raced aloft and apologized for having been absent. Gant was nodding with admiration at something below the level of the view panel, probably something on the desk.
Gant looked up after a moment and said, "Dusty Britton, this is really a remarkable route. Truly fantastic. So well hidden, and yet right within our grasp all of these centuries! Well, you shall see, Dusty. And doubtless you will agree."
"Okay," said Dusty, "let's get going."
"Not so fast, young man. I'm waiting for the direction-finding stations to report so that I can determine where along this prospected route you lie."
"We're about two-thirds of the way out from the center, I believe," offered Dusty.
"That's a rather inaccurate generality. You know where you are and we know where we are, but we must know where we are with respect to one another before we can make contact. Now—" Gant's voice stopped suddenly as something caught his eye above the lens of the viewpanel, and he looked over Dusty's head, apparently, so intently that Dusty himself turned to see what Gant was staring at. He saw only instruments, and realized that Gant was looking at another panel-section above the one that communicated with Dusty's panel.
"Um," said Gant. "You would appear to lie in what we call 'Sector G-18, Co-ordinate 307, Galactic Angle 215.86-plus degrees, South altitude-angle 1.017-minus degrees, Co-frame 9654.' Now, Dusty, in your terms, where lies the Galactic Center?"
Dusty laughed. The tone of his laugh was half bitter and half a note of self-disparagement. "Sorry, Gant. We frame our reference from Terra, naturally."
Dusty breathed a sigh of relief at having boned up on enough science to play his part convincingly.