"Aw-right, aw-right—who's asking you guys to believe me?" Tiflin cut in. "I'll beam the twins for you—since I'd guess your transmitter won't reach. You can listen in, and talk back through my set. Okay?"
"Let's see what happens—just for kicks," Ramos said softly. "If you're calling some friends to come and get us, or anything, Tif—well, you've had it!"
They watched Tiflin spin and focus the antenna. "Kuzak... Kuzak... Kuzak... Kuzak..." he said into his phone. "Missing boys alive and coming to you. Mex and old Guess Which... Kicking and independent, but very hungry, I think... Put on the coffee pot, you storekeepers... Kuzak... Kuzak... Kuzak... Talk up, Frank and Miguel. Your voices will relay through my phone..."
"Hi, Art and Joe—it's us," Ramos almost apologized.
"Yeah—we don't quite know yet what Tiflin is pulling. But here we are—if it's you we're talking to..."
There was the usual long wait as impulses bridged the light-minutes.
Then Art Kuzak's voice snarled guardedly. "I hear you, Ram and Nel. Come in, if you can...! Tif, you garbage! Someday...! This is all. This is all..." The message broke off.
Tiflin smirked. "Third quadrant of the Belt," he said, giving a position in space almost like latitude and longitude on Earth. "About twenty minutes of the thirty-first degree. Three degrees above median orbital plane. Approximately two hundred hours from here. Can Igor and I leave you, now, or do you want us to escort you in?"
"We'll escort you," Ramos said.
So it was, until, near the end of a long ride, a cluster of bubbs was in view in the near distance, and Ramos and Nelsen could contact Art Kuzak themselves.