me have a couple of pokes at the
slob," Ramos snapped.

"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.

"We've got Tiflin and his Tovie pal with us, Art," Frank Nelsen said.
"They showed us the way, more or less because we made them. But Tif did
give us the right position at the start. A favor, maybe. I don't know.
And now he's saying, 'Be cavalier--it might be awkward for me to meet
Art and Joe just at present.' Do you want to fix this character's wagon
bad enough? Your customers could get mean--if he ever did them dirt."

"Just one thing I've got against Tiflin!" Art snarled back. "Every time
I hear his voice, it means trouble. But I've never seen the crumb
face-to-face since that Moonhop. Okay, let's not spoil my stomach. Turn
him loose. It can't make much difference. Or maybe I'm sentimental about
the old Bunch. He wa