"Who spoke just now?" Jeremy asked
"You heard that too? I thought I heard it in my mind" Aurora said
"Your mind what? We all heard it" Bradley said
"It was in our minds" Jav confirmed now looking at the alien who he suspected was the one responsible.
"Like telepathy?" Haskier asked
"How is that possible?" Jeremy wondered aloud.
At just the same time the voice spoke in their minds again, all of them at once.
"Hi," the voice said, shocking all of them again, "I am sorry for taking quite some time to reach out to you, I was still trying to learn your tongue"
"Wait, are you the alien?" Haskier asked
"Yes, I am" the voice replied, "Although, to me, you are the aliens"
"Woah, we are actually talking to the alien through telepathy!" One of the infirmary hands, Lou, an ebony skinned young woman, said
"That is so fucking cool!" Haskier exclaimed, before apologizing for the cuss word he used in the presence of his superiors.
"Calm down you guys" Jeremy said to the excited crew members
"Yeah, we are still communicating with our new friend and they don't understand everything we are saying just yet" Aurora pointed out.
"Right, can you communicate with us through telepathy only?" Jav asked the alien
"For now, yes"
"Where are you from?" Jeremy asked
"The Zeta Reticuli star system" the alien replied
"That is rather far from earth, isn't it?" Haskier asked. Bradley had never heard of it.
"Approximately thirty-nine light years from earth" both Aurora and the alien answered.
"So how did you find yourself all the way here, in our solar system?" Jeremy asked, echoing the question on both Jav's and Aurora's minds.
"I… I do not seem to recall what happened at the moment" the alien replied after some time, feeling rather sad that it had no recollection of the events leading to its being found by their ship. "I am sorry"
"No, do not apologize, you do not remember and that is not your fault or making" Aurora said sympathetically.
Jeremy sighed, it was rather sad that the alien does not remember the events leading to this point, but they would need the alien to remember to know where they came from and what to do with them.
"Perhaps the memory would come back eventually" Aurora consoled.
"Hopefully" Jav added
"It has a name at least right?" Bradley said, speaking as though he can't speak directly to the alien when the alien was hearing him and he could speak directly to it.
"The alien can hear you, Bradley, you can ask them yourself" Aurora said rolling her eyes.
"I think the alien is a he, you know, a male" Jav shared
"I am female actually" the alien said, reminding them that she can hear them well, even though her speech is only through telepathy for now.
Her words left Bradley, Haskier and Jav speechless—their jaws dropping to the floor, nice Jeremy helped Bradley pick his off the floor. They could not imagine that the weird looking alien before them was female in any species, they fully expected it to be male. To make matters worse, you cannot identify the gender from the voice—given it is heard only in their minds.
Aurora ignored her male colleagues and asked a rather key question, "Since you can speak to us through the mind, can we also speak to you through telepathy?"
"Yes" the alien replied causing a round of gasps of 'Cool!' to go round the room, "But only if you open your mind to me, creating a communication pathway. And I will hear only what you want me to hear and not your every thought"
While Aurora was still asking how they can do that, Jav had already done that and began conversing with the alien.