Jamila could suddenly hear a rough, clattering noise and the friction of wheels on the road. The Asalooq had never really done much in the way of road travel. Smart, inventive engineers that they were, they had taken to powered flight with a vengeance when it had come along just a few years after combustion engines. Thus, their road system was relatively primitive, but they had many shipping lanes and magnetorail for cargo and local traffic. With lots of empty space at their disposal (three billion wasn't nearly enough to fill up the continents, even when large swathes of them were completely empty), flying was the logical choice. As the road vehicle drew nearer, Robinson herded them all forward. "I'm told the doors will just open, no functionaries to let us in. It's polite not to acknowledge the driver at all - isn't that right, Mr Issor?" Robinson's voice bouldered along. Issor simply nodded, and Jamila once again felt sympathy for the Asalooq officer. By now, she knew enough about their culture to get an inkling for how it must be for him to be among people who had little regard for his personal Tashaneton, his personal integrity and private space as the Asalooq saw it. What Jamila couldn't wrap her head around yet was how his people got anything done. How was it possible that so reserved a species, so obsessed with their version of decorum, could have made so dynamic a technological progress over the last 100 years? It was an apparent contradiction, and contradictions, in individuals as well as societies, were always fascinating to the psychologist in her, taken aback as her private self might be with their ways. For her, it would be horrible to have to go to such lengths to approach anyone, to even ask how they felt … She had already decided she wanted to learn the Asalooq interactive techniques, so she could get to know as many of them as possible, but she was very much aware she had a lot to learn.

The vehicle was now visible; Jamila had once seen a picture of an ancient … carriage? What did they call it then? - in which a famous group of musicians travelled. The six-wheeled vehicle reminded her vaguely of that, but closer inspection made clear what it was. It had been a rugged cargo transporter, someone had removed the cargo hold and replaced it with a spacious passenger cabin, probably hastily adorned with Federation blue. Inside, plush seats with protruding wings awaited, almost creating separate cabins. Every seat had a small plate with little snacks and drinks, a high-class selection of Asalooq cuisine and cellar by the looks of it. Dr Eniyan made sure she had the seat next to Jamila's one, and the counsellors heart jumped delightfully at that. "They don't have seats facing each other," the doctor noted. "Makes sense in their context, not so much in ours, I guess," Eniyan added like an afterthought or a justification. She whipped out a compact medical tricorder and swung the whirring device over her food tray. "Should be fine," she announced after a moment and started to pick a bit of everything, just as the plate arrangement invited one to do. "Why do you have a medical tricorder with you?" asked Jamila curiously. Eniyan bent forward and gave her a smile that made her heart jump again. "We're supposed to be able to demonstrate something from our field. Didn't you bring a couch?" Jamila chortled with laughter. "Seriously though, I brought it because I know they are worried about their military medical service. They haven't had serious wars for two generations or so, so they're a bit behind the curve. I want to show them, if they want to, how easily they can equip their future defense militia to quickly diagnose any injury."

The vehicle started to roll on the road towards the city. It was a gentle ride, Jamila thought. Almost like in a shuttle. At first, they only came through the endless Chula fields surrounding ASF. She tried some Chula root from her plate, this one boiled and sweetened. She quite liked its sweetness, reminding her of a baked banana dish from Earth, but for a human palate, this was definitely a dessert. The next bit was crisply fried and wrapped in some leaf, whose peppery aroma almost made her cough. The Asalooq cuisine seemed all about variation, but Jamila liked that. The next bit she tried was a kind of shrimp by the looks of it, which turned out to taste a little like chicken seasoned with lemon, paprika and some sort of alien oil she couldn't quite place. "If they are half as nice as their cuisine, I'm moving here permanently!" she announced to the bit of Eniyan's head she could see. The doctor chuckled. "Yeah, I like this too. Not as bland as human food, at least," she teased. It was weird talking to someone without seeing their face, especially if the face in question was as lovely as the Bolian woman's. Jamila was about to reply in kind, but as she looked up, she saw the first buildings of Council City. They were unimpressive, low structures with a tent-like look to them, as if they could be packed up and hauled away. Many Asalooq m'rt or family groups, she remembered, especially those who represented their yahdooc or tribe at the Council, lived here only part of the year. The climate was such that not much isolation from the cold was necessary, so those groups had their "Council homes" and their regular, more permanent houses in their home region. They used to travel by sea and on the ancient roads from the national council centers. Asalooq valued their space, and with the explosive technological advance during the last 100 years, urbanization had only just begun. The buildings, Jamila saw as they entered the city, remained low. Asalooq architects seemed to like to use more space instead of building higher, another sign that they had never lacked ground to build on. However, modern industrial buildings became more frequent, interspersed with compounds of more permanent family houses, long and rectangular, often set back a ways from the road the officers' vehicle was travelling on. Under the roofed patios going all around the houses, Asalooq sat in groups, chairs and benches facing each other, not outward. Jamila saw her first Asalooq children, lively and scurrying about like most species' offspring, but much less rowdy than human kids of the same age group.

Only two groups of Asalooq seemed to pay any attention to their vehicle. One were old females, the only ones on the family patios to look away from the house, some quite visibly sitting in state, ruling over their little domain and looking at the strangers with rather suspicious dark eyes. The other were young people, distinguished from the patio-sitters by their clothing, and how they moved alone instead of in groups. They tended to stand and watch the vehicle go by, their expressions still neutral to Jamila's eyes, but with apparent interest. Some, even, discreetly made friends or family members aware of the vehicle with the UFP livery, and conversations seemed to start. Jamila remembered not to look at one group or individual too long. That got easier as the vehicle left the outer districts of the City, as small, serene and well-spaced crowds of young Asalooq started to appear, probably informed by like-minded friends from the city rim. Some even waved, which always caused awkward laughs from their friends and highly disapproving looks from passing older people and others in more traditional garb. One older woman even grabbed a waving youth's arm, and the boy withdrew into the crowd, much more civilly than Jamila would have done as a teenager.

Higher buildings started to appear, the rectangular, practical shapes of apartment buildings, which still carried over some of the family houses' traits, like balconies around the whole building and the shallow-sloped roofs. The windows were small and shaded, not really meant to look out or in, rather just there to admit some daylight. They reminded Jamila of the way Teldac Issor and other Asalooq looked at people - inoffensive, almost furtive. She knew it wasn't fair, wasn't appropriate in any way, but it depressed her to see them. How much pain, how much potential was hiding behind those faces, those windows? The thought embarrassed her. It was unworthy. Clearly, the Asalooq realized their potential every day; technologically, they had gone from where humanity had been around the year 1600 to where it had been around 2150 in little more than a century. Politically, they had gone farther still. For the first time, Jamila al-Qamari really understood what the challenge of First Contact was, what efforts had been and still were necessary to build and maintain the Federation...

The vehicle turned onto a wide avenue. Here, the buildings were almost recognizable as belonging to a UFP member world. Jamila could hear Eniyan cluck disapprovingly at the design, but she thought they had style. Balconies were a favorite, but these buildings were taller and rather majestic. The most fascinating and, she suspected, most carefully designed one was the IEAR compound - big Standard letters proclaimed that this was were the Institute for Extra-Asalooq Research, the global space agency of the Community of Asalooq Nations and Tribes, was located. The compound consisted of a glass tower, very much UFP in style, a series of rounded office and laboratory buildings and an elaborate shuttle port, not dissimilar to a Starfleet vessel. The Asalooq also seemed to know about gardening, because beautiful flowerbeds and vibrant hedges adorned the space between the buildings. Jamila was almost sad that this was not their destination tonight, and decided to try and get invited should an AICSM delegation ever go here.

The building inhabited by the Separate Council on Global Safety and Security was rather less impressive. It was a U-shaped office block, four stories high, with its own shuttleport and a communications outbuilding, which had a large number of antennas on its roof. There were whip antennas, but also dish-type ones, a weirdly antiquated collection.

Their vehicle slowed after the one-hour drive, and Jamila got up to straighten her uniform. The dress one again. Soon, they'd be heading for some kind of record with all their formal occasions.