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He usually spoke aloud to the device but it always responded mentally.
"I'm supposed to find a can opener an exploration party inadvertently left behind. The scientists know when they'd left it and had a general feeling for where, correct?" He didn't wait for the ovinulacrum to confirm. "They'd camped on the Platte River below the headwaters and this spot we're at is just a quarter mile from where their camp had been. I'm supposed to avoid the Arapaho natives, go look around with this metal detector – his hand rested on the sidearm - and retrieve the can opener. That the mission you remember?"
"That's the one," the device agreed.
"You got any idea who these people standing in front of us are?"
"Memory banks suggest they may well be Arapaho."
"Let's go with that thought. Do you speak Arapaho?"
"Why would I speak Arapaho? That's just plain dumb."
"Look, you're the nudida on this mission, not me. You're supposed to grant my wishes to the extent you can. You're not supposed to debate fine points."
"Fine, revert to legalisms. Jes remember that I get programm't to accomplish missions jes like you does...do...jes the same as you. Apparently, my programmin' works better than yours."
"Well, I wish you spoke Arapaho."
"Okay."
"Okay, what?"
"I do...did...does."
"You do did does what?"
"I speak Arapaho."
"But you just said you did not speak Arapaho."
"But then you wish't I did, so I does....do....so I can speak Arapaho."
"Then tell me what to say to these folk."
"Say <how the hell are you?>"
"Pronounce that again, please. I didn't get it all."
"<how the hell are you?>"
"Okay," Pointer said, then turned to the trio before him, "<how the hell are you?>"
The trio started, surprised at his voice, his words, his diction, his linguistic acumen, something. They looked at each other to engage in a heated debate, hands gesturing towards Pointer, towards themselves, towards the surrounding country-side.
"What are they saying?" Pointer asked.
"Hain't got the faintest, mate."
Again, Pointer turned to stare at the ovinulacrum. "b-ren, you just said you can speak Arapaho and then you gave me some theoretically Arapaho words to say. Now, you're telling me you that cannot understand Arapaho...again."
If the ovinulacrum could huff, it would have. Since it couldn't huff, it phrased its thought as a huffy kind of thought even though most experts still doubt the ability to communicate emotion with thoughts. "I speak perfectly fine Arapaho, mate. These people don"."
"What are they speaking?"
"Have no clue, mate; none whatsoever. And afore you start in on me again for the umpteenth thousan'th time, allow poor little ole sheep person here to remin' big bad human person over there that I ten' to do what I'm tol'; unlike some we could be namin'."
The trio's animation dissipated, replaced by a return of their attention to Pointer Cardigan and the sheep behind him. The tallest of the three said something to Pointer, something he believed to be a question.
"What'd he say?" Pointer asked the ovinulacrum.
"What makes you certain he's a he, eh, mate? From where I'm observin', looks downright female to me."
Distracted, Pointer looked again the person who'd asked the question.