Free Starcrossed by Brenda Hiatt Page B

understood. “Sometimes. But . . . what is it like there? I mean, the entire colony is underground, right? Isn’t it weird living your whole life in . . . in caves?” How could anyone miss that?
    They started laughing again. “It’s really not like that at all,” Molly assured me. “Actually, it looks a little like Ireland—we were surprised how much when we moved there last year.”
    “But isn’t there a . . . a ceiling?”
    “There is,” Sean admitted. “I mean, we all know it’s there, but it’s about a mile up, and disguised to look exactly like the sky on Earth, with clouds, and stars at night and everything.”
    “Disguised?”  
    “Holographically,” Sean clarified.  
    I’d seen the omni’s little holographic screen, so I guessed that made sense. “So . . . like being inside a really, really big domed stadium with video screens on the ceiling?”  
    “Maybe, but it doesn’t feel like that,” Molly said. “It just feels like being . . . outside. Where we lived, there’s even grass and sheep and stuff.”
    “ Sheep? ” Okay, maybe not like a huge cavern or an underground spaceship, which is what I’d been imagining. “You have sheep?”
    “Well, not us, personally,” Molly admitted, “but people do.”
    “So Nuath isn’t just one big city?”  
    She shook her head, smiling at my confusion. “There are two big towns—well, not so big by Earth standards—plus a couple dozen villages, spread out over nearly a four hundred square miles.”
    “Four hundred—!” These new images were completely shattering my preconceptions.  
    “That’s only twenty miles in each direction,” Sean pointed out. “She means area, not diameter. You’re taking Geometry, right?”
    His tone was teasing and I gave him a mock glare. “Yeah, okay. But still, twenty miles . . . underground . . .” I shook my head again. “Are there, like, pillars or something, holding up the roof?”
    “Antigravity supports,” Sean said. “There are physical supports, too, but not many. They’re not necessary.”
    It sounded kind of dangerous to me. “But what if the, uh, power died or something? Wouldn’t the ceiling collapse?”
    “It’s worked for almost three thousand years,” Molly pointed out. “Plus there’s a lot of redundancy built in, just to be safe. Really, it’s not something we even think about.”
    “Besides,” Sean said, “it seems safer to me than having a sky that goes all the way out into space, where anything could just fall on you.” He gave an almost imperceptible shudder.
    I started to laugh, but stopped when I saw he looked embarrassed. “The only thing that’s ever fallen out of the sky here has been rain, sleet and snow. Okay, and sometimes hail.”
    He didn’t seem particularly reassured. “Even that . . . Guess I’m still not used to the idea. Hey, do you want to see some pictures?”
    That distracted me immediately, as he’d probably intended. “Pictures? Definitely!”
    Sean grinned at my enthusiasm. “Just a sec.” He pulled his omni out of his pocket and pulled up the screen, touched a button or two and a photo—or maybe a video—popped up. I could swear it was three-dimensional.
    “Wow,” I murmured, examining what looked like a village street with reddish stone houses on either side. There were glimpses of green countryside in the background. In the foreground, a red-haired young woman and a dark-haired girl stood waving—literally waving—next to one of the houses. I realized with a start that the girl was Molly.
    “That’s me with Elana,” she told me. “Just a few weeks before she . . . disappeared. And that’s our house. Or, well, it was.” She looked away from the picture.
    I put a hand on her arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up sad memories.”
    “It’s not your fault, M.” Sean sounded a little choked up, too. “I’m the one who pulled up that pic. Sorry, Moll. Here, I’ll—”
    “Sean?” Mrs. O’Gara came into the