“I'd be happy to learn more about your world, but that can certainly wait. And it would be more efficient if we worked out data exchange first.”

"Data exchange?"

“Figuring out how to connect our computers to yours, or reading your storage formats, however your technology works.”

"Ah. I suppose you can't get much from a datapad?"

“I wasn't asking because I assumed it was your personal device — and you'd know better than I what kind of information is there or whether you want to share it.”

She types something noticeably longer than what it eventually says: "There isn't anything very personal in it. How are you understanding my language?"

“That's an ambient effect of being in Milliways! We would not understand each other if we left together. It works on any language but only when people here are doing the listening or reading — if you wrote something and I took it back to my world then I wouldn't be able to read it, and if I had a computer here then that couldn't parse it either.”

"Does it handle signed languages?"

“Anything! I smelled a conversation once.”

That makes things much easier, then, she signs, and goes through the pad's functions. It's fairly utilitarian and basic - the text to speech program, an unused scheduling feature, a picture album with a few dozen sunset photos and a couple of pictures of alien cats, a reader with a few things - a small collection of poetry, an in-progress novel, a couple of medical references, something that seems to be a Jedi religious book - and the local equivalent of a web browser, email program, messaging program, and web-based encyclopedia, none of which work well at all without the internet they're expecting. She can also get to the file storage system, though it takes a while for her to realize that that might be of any interest and she doesn't seem to know how to do much with it.

She has met a thousand worlds' computers, knows what things to look for, and has appendages with which to operate the datapad. Does the storage contain anything that wasn't already shown besides program files?

There's some cached files - an encyclopedia page about an obscure, alien congenital disease, a few more poems, a conversation where Devika was consulting on someone's tricky healing case. Nothing too surprising.

“I can't do much with just the datapad because it doesn't have network access as long as the door is shut. Do you mind if I read this while you see about a room?” she asks, pointing at the Jedi text.

Go right ahead. She heads for the bar.

The book is a collection of essays, fairly obviously intended for someone already familiar with the basics of Jedi philosophy. The general gist comes through just fine, though - emotional detachment, trusting the guidance of the Force, avoiding the kind of attachments that might cause bias or distract from the individual peace a Jedi is supposed to seek.

What to think of that depends on a lot of implementation details. She moves on to skimming the medical encyclopedia and forwarding it to experts.

(Bar is happy to rent Devika a room of any particular level of amenities. The price is not set per whole day or night since there is neither a consistent time of day nor passage of time in general, but quite reasonable.)

She doesn't have any credits on her but she's content to run up a tab; she doesn't expect to have any trouble getting the Council to reimburse her. Soon she has her room key and is heading back to Teytis' table. Any questions? she signs when she gets there.

She has a few, oriented around getting some context for future contacts. How large is known space, in planets and people? How easy is travel, at the scale of individuals and of ships? What governments exist? How do the Jedi relate to them?

She knows the answers to those, at least vaguely: it's a fairly normal galaxy, and well-populated, with somewhat over three million habitable planets. Hyperdrives don't allow for arbitrary travel - coming too close to a massive object will destroy them - so they follow set lanes that are known to be safe, which slows transit down some, but getting from one side of the Republic to the other is a matter of days or weeks, not months, and not prohibitively expensive. The Republic is a democracy made up of member planets, and claims the territory near the center of the galaxy, with its seat of power on Coruscant; the Hutts, a species of alien, have an empire ruled by powerful trading families, and the Sith have one that they rule, and the rest of the galaxy is ruled on a more local scale. The Jedi answer to the Republic and serve them in diplomatic and peacekeeping capacities, though they do have their own planet, Tython, and a reasonable amount of latitude to manage their own affairs.

She asks clarifying questions but doesn't have any comments that she shares with Devika. “I'll let you get back to your own plans.”

She nods, may the Force be with you, and heads upstairs.