[Plugin: Co-Authors Plus] individual author id

i am using the the_author() tag under the iterate loop.
which returns me to the name of the author.

is there a tag that i could use to get the author’s user id.

I am using buddypress and want the coauthors to be linked to the buddy press member page and not the author post archive-

here is what i have got for now –

<?php
$i = new CoAuthorsIterator();
print $i->count() == 1 ? 'Author: ' : 'Authors: ';
$i->iterate(); ?>
    <a href="https://intranet.nfshost.com/members/<?php the_author(); ?>"><?php the_author(); ?></a>
<?php
while($i->iterate()){
    print $i->is_last() ? ' and ' : ', '; ?>
    <a href="https://intranet.nfshost.com/members/<?php the_author();  ?>"><?php the_author(); ?></a>

Please help