the_meta – no get_the_meta query?

You are getting an error because get_the_meta isn’t a function. Just because many the_* functions have a corresponding get_the_* function, it doesn’t mean that all do.

What you want is get_post_meta or get_post_custom. Those will return arrays which you will have to loop over and format yourself. the_meta uses get_post_custom. You can use its code as a template for your own code if you want.