Much as he would have liked to have replied, Ford's tongue still wasn't working. He felt like he'd gotten a mouthful of something that wasn't edible, and it was making it impossible to do anything with his mouth other than focus on not swallowing it. If he didn't know for a fact that there wasn't anything in his mouth he might have stuck his tongue out to try and get whatever it was off, but he expected that would only make him look crazy and wouldn't help at all.

"— do you have water down here?" he asked, and somehow had no difficulty with those words.