Well, if you ask a microbe a question, it won't answer you, because it doesn't have ears, doesn't speak any human language, nor has any mouth, larynx, or lungs capable of speech. Some primates and dogs have been shown to have vocabularies of thousands of words, but dogs have never been trained to use sign language like have apes, AFAIK. Despite their vocularity, cetaceans remain indecipherable, although some may have been trained to understand signs or speech. I really don't know about cetaceans. Some birds can mimic human speech, and certainly have been claimed to understand or be trained.

I think my cat knows more than he lets on.

That's, all considered, a pretty short list of non-human beings we have some kind of ability to communicate with. None of them seems able to discuss consciousness in a way we can quantify, although Koko the Gorilla once blamed her pet kitten for ripping a stainless steel sink off the wall, and I think lying is a pretty sure sign of consciousness, even of self-consciousness.

Bugs, plants, fungi, and all other living and non-living creatures just can't tell us anything (although we can tell they make decisions by indirect means), but rocks and planets and stuff, well, it doesn't seem reasonable to inquire.

That doesn't mean it's not conscious, in some way, and doesn't make decisions. It just means we have no way to test it.