Sneaking in Edgewise

Oblivious!

That was the single comment that the away pair made via the navigation channel. I understood completely. No matter how close in frequency the away pair was operating, they still could not possibly be observed as the communication internal to the slide-talking pair was tightly coupled.

Be Early.

Be Loud.

This was the best advice I could give. Looking at the sequence of shifts, there was one frequency that was always followed by a slide to a single higher one. I played back this shift sequence and converted it to relative frequency notation for transmission. While I was working to transfer this information to the stationkeepers, I was jolted into laughter as the most mangled mega-tap warbled out of the Seven.

Up to this point, I had never received a mega-tap. While this one was far from clean and clear, it certainly was loud, and managed to get the slide-talker to pause their internal conversation. Briefly.

The stationkeepers completed the information relay and a blipped back a pair of acknowledgement pulses. Scanning for the predictable frequency I detected the first note from the chatty pair, and in the gap that normally followed, the next note was inserted three times; rapidly and loudly by the away pair, with the fourth pulse being the anticipated note from the talking half of the chatty pair.