Food was important in most cultures, but in Astar it was treated quite differently to what Aerlid was used to.
His questions to Keila and Jania were always circumspect, Astar was supposed to be his home after all. He told them he had difficulty remembering much of his life from Astar, a combination of distance in time, a few too many blows to the head and the trauma associated with being stranded outside the human lands. Yet he couldn’t quite believe what he was learning and his questions gradually became more direct.
Where food was concerned you could buy it in stores, but there were no little shops for eating out, though there were places where you brought your own food and could cook and share it with other customers. There was no dish or food native to Astar, yet surely, he thought, there must be something. Every place had something. Maybe they were fond of their cheese, or they grew the tastiest tomatoes. Perhaps they made a local soup that they were proud of. But in Astar food was not to be enjoyed, it was to be prepared and eaten efficiently. That was all.
This was something Aerlid could not quite grasp. He’d been looking forward to the food in Astar- the capital of the human civilization. Just as he failed to understand how the people of Astar viewed food, Keila and Jania were astonished at his views. They ended up thinking perhaps he had gone a bit strange in the head out in the wild.
Money in Astar also surprised him. It was made out of a very beautiful stone. Stone that he was sure other people would have adorned their temples, mansions and castles with. In Astar this pale, blue veined stone was used for money for two reasons. One, it had no other use to them. They had no temples, mansions or castles and if they had they certainly wouldn’t have wasted valuable resources decorating them. Two, it was close and easy to cut.
When Aerlid and Riley first arrived in Astar he had wondered about their honour system when it came to buying food. When you bought little you paid little, when you bought a lot the price of every item increased substantially. This relied mostly on the honour system as there were no records of what people bought, so a person could easily shop in one store then go to another to avoid the price increase. People who did this were cheaters. Cheating was something Astarians were very passionate about. Aerlid had learnt that gemengs who abused the system were cast out of Astar and that was that, but for humans something entirely different happened.
Out of curiosity Aerlid visited the store for humans who cheated. He stayed on the opposite side of the street, though anyone was allowed to shop there, being seen to do so was nothing short of social suicide. It was a large building located far from the city centre and was only one story. The road in front of it was dirt.
He watched people come and go for some time.
The prices in that store were uniform. People who cheated were not allowed to shop anywhere else, and valuable paper was used to ensure all the stores in the city knew who was a cheater. So first of all, those who were caught cheating suddenly had their food expenses rise astronomically. Secondly, as shopping was a family affair, everyone in the family had to shop at this place, so not only was the cheater socially ostracized, the entire family was. The children too, the only way they could escape the shame was when they moved out or if they married into another family. If they stayed in their family’s household they would shop at that store for the rest of their lives, as would their children.
Cheaters were universally reviled. Friends would cease all contact with them. Their career would progress no further than that of a gemeng. They would be lucky not to be beaten on their way home from work.
The obsession of the humans with resource use was based on their fear of the gemengs attacking. Every mine and farm had to be protected from attack. The city had to be protected. The transportation routes had to be protected. Indeed, this fear was behind the layout of Astar. In case of attack, there was a shield that could be deployed around the city. In the case of the farms, a low grade shield was always deployed. It would mean starvation if the farms were destroyed, so the energy cost was deemed worth it. The easiest and most efficient model was a dome, so that was why all the buildings uniformly rose towards the centre. Further, this also explained why gemengs lived on the outskirts. If to save power the shield had to be contracted, the areas on the edges of the city would be the first to be made defenceless. In the centre of the city there were many shelters for the humans. Adult gemengs weren’t allowed in these shelters. If Astar was attacked, the gemengs were expected to stay outside and fight.
Aerlid wanted to know if Astar was attacked regularly. He thought it must be, for this was the number one concern and interest for all citizens of Astar. He had a surprising amount of trouble finding the answer. Keila looked at him blankly when he asked about the last time Astar was attacked. Jania smiled at him and patted his hand, ‘Not to worry,’ she said, ‘the military was exceptional. We’ll be quite safe if we’re attacked.’ To know there had been an attack in Jania’s lifetime was something, at least.
Whoever he asked, he always got the same response. Military personnel jogging in the park looked at him with hard faces and told him they were equipped to deal with any gemeng incursion. Children told him Jeitar would save them from Molzolzor.
He was astonished. In fact it was Riley who gave him the best answer. She looked around the city and informed him there were no signs of damage, so if there had been an attack it had either been unsuccessful or it had not been recent. Further, from the patterns of deployment of the soldiers it could be determined an attack was not expected in the near future. Aerlid wanted to know what exactly she knew about patterns of deployment of soldiers.