"I don't believe Harkaway knows the language nearly as well as he pretends to," Iversen told the first officer as both of them watched the young lieutenant make the formal speech of farewell.
"Come now," the first officer protested. "Seems to me the boy is doing quite well. Acquired a remarkable command of the language, considering he's been here only four weeks."
"Remarkable, I'll grant you, but is it accurate?"
"He seems to communicate and that is the ultimate objective of language, is it not?"
"Then why did the Flimbotzik fill the tanks with wine when I distinctly told him to ask for water?"
Of course the ship could synthesize water from its own waste products, if necessary, but there was no point in resorting to that expedient when a plentiful supply of pure H2O was available on the world.
"A very understandable error, sir. Harkaway explained it to me. It seems the word for water, m'koog, is very similar to the word for wine, mk'oog. Harkaway himself admits his pronunciation isn't perfect and—"
"All right," Iversen interrupted. "What I'd like to know is what happened to the mk'oog, then—"
"The m'koog, you mean? It's in the tanks."
"—because, when they came to drain the wine out of the tanks to put the water in, the tanks were already totally empty."