Point bein', it'd be a soup with all them things in it, sir, and I'm reasonably sure I ain't as such. But I felt a breeze. First it came from m'left, messed up m'dang hair part. Ain't easy t'keep that line straight. And then, just t'make good 'n sure I's paying attention, it must've circled round, 'cause next time I felt it, it was straight on in the face. Real playful-like.

And this voice spoke t'me, only it wasn't and it didn't, if y'get m'meanin'. Like, it didn't speak to me 'cause...it was in me. And...it wasn't speakin', 'cause there wasn't...time...to th'words. Nobody never said 'em. They just suddenly--pop!--popped into m'mind, like they'd always been there with football memories and love for Momma. Only they wasn't.

Well, if "they" were a "they" and they was "sayin'" and not "bein'", then they said a whole buncha numbers t'me. Didn't make sense, 'cause somethin' was talkin'--only not talkin'--t'me, so I reckoned it was somethin' I should understand. But more numbers just kept...existin' in. I could feel 'em whizzin' round my brain like they was runnin' backwards in a globe-shaped carousel and creeped out into my skull-bones and down restin' in my teeth, vibratin' and causin' my roots t'fizzle and shoot back up into my brain and make me wish there was a leak in my suit t'turn me into messy soup.

But once they washed over me a few times, I began t'see a language. Real sketchy, and used a few too many fours for my likin', but I knew it. I understood it.

What'd they say? Don't know that I know how to say it, sir, unless y'done felt a breeze in yer spacesuit. Anyway, I wouldn't worry 'bout it much--they gon' show us in fifteen minutes.