By Any Other Name

By Wesa

Series: Crossover War of the Worlds/ The People

Rating: G

Category: Angst (?)

Disclaimers: War of the Worlds characters belong to Paramount and Strangis & Strangis. The concept of The People belonged to the late Zenna Henderson until her death; I don't know who owns it now. I have nothing but admiration for those who created these characters and concepts, and I mean no disrespect. I'm not making any money from this; this is just for my own entertainment and for the entertainment of those who want to read it.

By Wesa.

"Well!" Shadow exclaimed, laughing. "Welcome back!"

Paul and Harrison looked around to find her setting supper on the table.

"This is more addictive than television," Randie said, rising and stretching. "How long have you been back?"

"We came in when you were telling them how Lytha loved the birds here on Earth," Lytha said. She gestured to Harrison to get up off the couch. "Mom says you can eat at the table with us tonight."

"Is 'Lytha' a common name among you?" Paul asked as Harrison followed the blonde teenager down the hallway.

"Not so common as you're probably thinking. The Lytha in the story was my great-aunt," Shadow explained. "Her baby sister Eve was my grandmother."

"We do tend to name our children after our Befores," Randie chuckled. "Shadow's worse than most. Her older daughter is Eve, after her grandmother."

"And my son, Nick, is named after my father," Shadow laughed, "because Remy beat me to David and Bruce."

"And... Bruce is who?" Paul asked, feeling as if he should know.

"Eve's husband, my grandfather," Shadow replied. "He was the first of your people to marry one of us."

Harrison and Lytha had returned in time to hear that statement. "What about Lytha and Timmy?" Harrison asked. "Did Timmy survive? Did they find one another?"

Randie grinned wryly. "I sure hope so, or else I'm hallucinating my whole existence," she replied. "They were my great-grandparents."

"It's easier to tell stories that are in your direct family line," Shadow told him. "When Mother Assembled the story of the Crossing for me, she got it from Eva-Lee. Lytha's younger brother Simon was the one whose Gift allowed the People time to build ships before the Home was Called." She shook her head. "To be able to put aside the curtain of Time..." She sighed.

"Do you think we'll ever be able to Assemble Simon?" Randie asked wistfully.

Shadow looked at her oddly. "Randie...why would you want to? He Saw the Calling of the Home."

"Exactly," Randie replied. "What was it he told Eva-Lee? 'That's one of the things for which I have no words.' The only way we'll ever know exactly what happened to the Home is if we can see what he Saw. I personally would like to be sure we can prevent the same thing from happening to Earth."

"Is that a possibility?" Paul asked worriedly.

"We don't know," Shadow replied somberly. "Randie's right, we've never been able to determine exactly why the Home was Called."

"Maybe that's the reason for all the new Gifts," Lytha murmured as they all sat down at the table.

The three women bowed their heads. "We are gathered together in Thy Name," Shadow murmured. "Bless family and new friends, and bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies."

"Praise the Power," Randie and Lytha said in unison. All three women raised their hands to make a Sign in the air, then raised their heads and began to serve food to Harrison and Paul.

Over the next half-hour, the two Earth men repeatedly had to repress their feelings of astonishment at the sight of dishes sailing unsupported across the table. Afterward, when Shadow offered coffee, the cups floated serenely in from the kitchen. It was different, seeing it in person. It was more real somehow.

"Remy said you came looking for the Ship," Shadow said, smiling when Lytha got up and started clearing the table without being asked. "Thank you, sweetheart."

"He said there wasn't anything left of it," Paul said.

"Have you ever been up there, Randie?" Shadow asked. "No one had your Gift yet when we abandoned the old mine."

"I've been there, but I wasn't looking for pieces of the Ship," Randie replied. "You're thinking pieces of the electronic systems?" She got a far-off look on her face. "I don't know...It got awful hot, Shadow."

"What about the fuel?"

Randie shuddered. "I don't want anything to do with that stuff," she said. "Anyway, if I did find some of the fuel, we'd have to wear protective gear to gather it."

"Nuclear?" Harrison asked.

She nodded. "We had our wars and bombs in the Days of Difference, before the Peace," she replied. "It's not anything we're proud of."

Shadow stirred her coffee, then held the cup between her hands until steam rose fragrantly from the dark liquid inside. She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Harrison, I know you want to go up to Baldy to see if you can find anything."

"Is he well enough?" Paul asked.

"I think he will be by morning," Shadow replied, "if you take Lytha with you to monitor him. She can notify me if anything begins to go wrong."

Lytha gazed at her mother in astonishment. "H-How do I get them there, Mother?" she stammered. "I can't Lift them that far, and -"

"I'll take you up," Randie volunteered.

Shadow smiled. "I was hoping you would," she said.

**********

Randie's beat-up old car had once been blue, but most of the paint was long gone. The 1960s vintage Cougar wasn't the kind of car Paul would have chosen to take to go camping in the mountains, but Randie laughed and assured him they weren't going to be using the roads anyway. "I had Davy fit it with an unlight years ago," she explained. "I spend a lot of time in the mountains gathering gemstones."

"You're a ... a Finder?" Harrison asked, using the term he had learned from her stories.

"I know some of the function of Finders," she agreed, "but my Gift is new to the People, though perhaps not to Earth." She grinned wryly, her mouth pulling to one side. "The Old Ones decided to call me an Alchemist," she explained.

Harrison's face blanked. "Does that mean what I think it means?" he asked.

"I can alter atomic structure," Randie retorted, laughing. "I can't read minds." She turned as Paul and Lytha loaded the last of the camping gear into her trunk. "Ready?"

They left town on the road, and for such an old car, Paul had to admit the Cougar ran very well. He leaned over to look at the odometer. "Only 4000 miles? How many times have you turned it over?" he asked Randie.

"Never," she told him, smiling. "The only reason it has that many miles on it is because I drove it when I was at college. I told you, we rarely use the roads." She checked her mirrors. "Lytha? Can you sense any other Outsiders?"

"No one in line of sight, Randie," she replied.

Randie flipped an unmarked switch on the dash, and a moment later turned off the engine. She glanced at Paul, trying to repress a mischievous grin. "You've Lifted before, right? But Harrison was unconscious when Shadow and Lytha brought him in."

"That's right," Harrison said. "I'm looking forward to the experience."

"I'm not," Paul said, remembering the terrifying drop from thunderhead height.

"We won't be going so high," Randie assured him, "and we won't be doing any free-falling. Do you want Lytha to Still you to make it easier anyway?"

For a moment, he honestly considered it, but... "No," he told her regretfully. "If I'm going to die, I want to be awake for it." He looked out the window at the receding ground.

"So when are you going to turn on this unlight thing and Lift?" Harrison asked. Lytha giggled.

"Um, Harrison?" Paul said to get his attention. "Look out your window."

Harrison turned to his right and looked at the huge golden eagle soaring alongside; his jaw dropped.

"We've been Lifting for some time now," Randie said gently. "We're not as high as airliners travel, but higher than most birds except eagles and migrating geese. You can look at him all you like; he can't see you."

"Because of the unlight?" Harrison asked. Randie nodded. "How does it work?"

She looked at him with her eyebrows raised. "Something about flowing light around the shields. I really have no idea. I'm an Alchemist, not a Techie."

Harrison grinned at her. "Kind of like you don't have to know how a car works to be able to drive?"

"Yep, only I learned more about cars than I ever wanted to know while I was in college."

"How's that?" Paul asked.

"Worked part time at a car repair shop," Randie explained. She chuckled softly. "Once when we were short-handed, the boss threatened to have me go out and work on one of the brake jobs. I told him okay, but I wasn't going to ride in any car that I did the brakes on."

"Any real danger there?" Harrison asked in amusement. "I mean, you could just Lift."

"Not in public," Lytha pointed out. "And anyway, that was how Karen met Gramma and Great-Uncle Peter."

"How's that?"

"She broad-sided them," Randie explained, "t-boned them right there in the Canyon." She pointed.

Paul looked down cautiously, saw only water surrounded by trees. "What Canyon?" he asked.

"Cougar Canyon. It's under water now, has been for fifty years. Oh, Lytha, look!" Randie pointed ahead. "They've drawn the reservoir down enough that Jackass Flat is dry."

"'Jackass Flat?'" Harrison repeated, laughing.

"Is that any worse than the Rocky Mountains?" Randie retorted. "Like there was any other kind..." She grinned over her shoulder at him. "We didn't name it. There's Baldy. We didn't name that either," she assured Paul as she maneuvered the Cougar through the trees that covered the side of the mountain.

"Good," he told her, smiling. He watched as she flicked off the unmarked switch. "We don't need the unlight anymore?"

She raised her eyebrows. "You're quick. We're too low for radar to see us, and it's unlikely that anyone would be out this way on the mountain. Lytha, keep a feeler out just in case, would you? Thanks."

"There's a campground just over the ridge, Randie," Lytha told her. "No campers there at the moment."

Paul and Randie set up camp while Harrison helped Lytha cook. After they ate, watching the clouds build in the west, Harrison asked about Lytha's great-grandmother Eve, who had been only five at the time of the Crossing.

"She came down alone," Lytha told them, "raised in foster homes, a lot of them until she learned to not use the Power where others could see. She met Bruce in 1908 and agreed to marry him 2 years later, but first she told him the truth about who she was and where she came from. And he believed her!" Both women laughed delightedly. "And he married her anyway."

The laughter died out of Lytha's voice. "At first she was afraid to have children fathered by an Earth man, but finally they took a chance. Uncle Peter was born in 1916. They agreed to tell him nothing of the Home. His home was Earth, and knowing of his heritage could only bring him trouble, they thought. He learned to Lift when he was about 7, a little slower than a child in a Group, but before he started Lifting, he didn't even know it was possible.

"Bruce and Eve knew that Peter had some of the memories of Eve's ancestors - he'd quoted Gramma 'Chell one night during a thunderstorm - and Eve knew he could Lift. But he didn't seem to have any problems caused by the mixed genetics, so they allowed themselves to push their luck, and Bethie was born in 1925. Almost from the first, they knew there was something wrong."

Paul looked at Lytha sharply. "I thought Bethie was your grandmother," he said. "Remy said that you're physiologically human, that there was no problem with us interbreeding," he added with a glance at Randie.

"There isn't," Randie replied, "if there's access to a Group. But they didn't have that, so when Bethie developed her Gift within weeks of birth, only with no control, they were powerless to help her."

"She's a Sensitive, like Mom and me," Lytha said, "but she didn't know how to Channel the pain away. So when the dog got his paw caught in a trap, when Bruce got appendicitis, when the neighbor cut off his big toe chopping wood ... it all just built up and up, and all the doctor could do for her was to give her sedatives. Eve home-schooled her, because the other kids' skinned knees and banged elbows and the janitor's hangovers were too much for her. Meanwhile Peter learned that he could Lift other things the way he could Lift himself, and started doing more and more experimenting, even though Bruce had forbidden it.

"Then Bruce died in a flash flood. After the funeral Eve learned that Bethie couldn't Remember the Home, and that was when Peter first saw her weave one of the sunlight patterns that had so far given her the only comfort she'd known from Eve's ancestry." Lytha sighed. "Peter was working by that time, and Eve was a good midwife - Socorro didn't have a hospital. Peter had started taking Bethie out of town on weekends. They had learned that he could carry her up when he Lifted, and that even though she couldn't Lift, she could control her coming down. When Bethie was sixteen, their neighbor went into labor, so he took her to their favorite box canyon outside of town. They spent the afternoon there, making sure the neighbor would have delivered her baby before they got back. But just as they were approaching their home that evening, Bethie screamed and fainted."

Lytha took a deep breath to steady her trembling voice. "Eve had been hit by a car as she crossed the street to their house. The doctor gave Bethie sedatives, but it took Eve hours to die. There was no hope of getting her to the hospital; even just moving her inside had started the blood coming from her mouth again. Peter and Bethie were sitting with her when she suddenly woke and started telling them about the People. She didn't have time to tell them much before she was Called, but she did manage to give Peter a rough idea where the Cougar Canyon Group was. Then, much to Bethie's astonishment, when Eve died it didn't hurt; it healed."

Lytha fell silent, lost in the memory, so Randie quietly took up the story. "They were in shock after Eve's Calling, and didn't act on what she had told them until one day Peter came home from work to find Bethie curled up in a tight little ball on her bed. She begged him to help her commit suicide. It took him an hour to get her uncurled enough to take a sleeping pill. They left the next morning to look for the Group. It never occurred to Peter to Lift their pickup, so they were driving along the road, when suddenly there was a car slanting down out of the trees! It hit them broadside.

"When Peter came to, he listened for a minute, to Karen and Valancy discussing who they were and why they hadn't sensed them coming - the People can always sense Outsiders. It was only when they mentioned something about Bethie coming around that he roused himself enough to warn them of her condition. They couldn't understand at first how a talented Sensitive like Bethie wouldn't know how to Channel, but Valancy went in to her and showed her how."

Lytha smiled. "Even if they had turned them away for being half-breeds, Peter and Bethie had gotten what they came for, a cure for Bethie's pain," she said. "They couldn't take that away. Bethie wouldn't allow them to go any further until Peter told them." She laughed softly, tears starting in her eyes. "Whatever reaction they had been expecting, astonishment wasn't it."

"That was the first we knew that we could interbreed with the people of Earth," Randie explained. "It was a bit of a shock that one of us had even tried it."

"And the kids are truly of the People?" Harrison asked softly.

"So far," Randie replied. "As far as we can tell, we aren't genetically different from you. If we are, it's such a minor difference that it makes almost no difference."

"It makes a difference," Paul assured her. "A good difference. A strange and wonderful difference."

Randie smiled at him, but couldn't quite meet his gaze. She looked from their campfire, to Harrison's broad grin, to the clouds building into thunderheads southwest of the mountain. "It's going to storm tonight. Thunder and lightning don't bother either of you, do they?" she asked, brushing her hair away from her face.

"Not at all," Harrison assured her.

"I've always kind of liked thunderstorms," Paul said. "At least, the ones that don't include tornadoes. Lightning's beautiful, and thunder can vibrate your bones."

"'Did you ever wonder what it would be like to be up there in the middle of the storm,'" Lytha quoted softly, "'with clouds under your feet and over your head and lightning lacing around you like hot golden rivers, and the rain like icy silver hair lashing across your lifted face?'"

Randie's eyes shone at her young cousin, but Harrison snorted softly. "Sounds uncomfortable," he said. Both women burst into laughter. "What?" Harrison asked, dismayed at being the butt of a joke he didn't even understand.

"That's exactly what Grampa Bruce said," Lytha explained. "Exactly."

"Well, I think it sounds exciting," Paul declared.

"Would you like to?" Randie asked him. "I could take you up sometime."

He looked at her across the campfire, their eyes meeting full-on for the first time since they were introduced, and suddenly Paul realized that Randie wasn't shy because of his attraction to her; she was shy because she was just as attracted to him!

Harrison didn't have a clue about that, either. "How about another story instead?" he suggested. "I guess we know Timmy and Lytha got back together, if they were your great-grandparents, but I'd still like to know what happened."

After they ate, Randie and Lytha cleaned the place up, burying the leftovers carefully out in the woods away from camp, then washing the dishes. Then they sat down, and Lytha held Harrison's hand so that he could see, too, while Randie took Paul's hand in hers and started Timmy's story.