By Any Other Name

By Wesa

Series: Crossover War of the Worlds/ The People

Rating: PG

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.

The trip up to the mine was fortunately uneventful, at least from Harrison's point of view. Despite his urgings, Lytha insisted on remaining just far enough away from Paul and Randie that he couldn't hear what they were saying to each other. Lytha laughed at him. "Do you really need to hear what they're saying?" she asked. "Look at them."

Harrison did as she suggested, grinning in agreement. While he had his arm around Lytha's shoulders and hers encircled his waist, Paul and Randie clung to each other far more tightly than strictly necessary, even given Paul's discomfort with Lifting. In fact he didn't appear concerned at all this morning, Harrison decided. His friend seemed to be positively enjoying the trip up the mountain, even though they were just clearing the treetops. Randie did, too, smiling and even laughing at something Paul had said to her. In fact she was so intent on Paul that when they reached the mine entrance she overshot and had to swing around and come back to where Lytha and Harrison stood waiting for them in the opening.

"Distracted?" Harrison teased. Paul frowned at him warningly.

Randie gave him a lopsided grin. "I've talked so much in the last couple of days," she told him, "that I hadn't realized what good company Paul is," she explained, blushing.

Harrison started to say something else, but was interrupted by Lytha, who asked Randie, "Lights?"

Randie dug into the pocket of her jeans and brought out two coins, one of which she handed to Lytha. "Do you remember how?" she asked.

"How what?" Harrison asked.

Randie shushed him. "Wait, watch. Give her a chance," she instructed softly while Lytha concentrated.

Lytha gently chewed on her lower lip, setting the coin on edge in the flattened palm of her left hand. She glanced at Randie once, as if asking for assurance that she was doing it right, whatever 'it' was. She took a deep breath and held it, then gave the coin a flick with her right thumb and forefinger, spinning it on edge on her palm.

Harrison and Paul flinched back from the blinding flash of light, but Lytha laughed in relief. "I did it!" she exclaimed.

"You sure did," Randie agreed, using her hand to shield her eyes. "Can you damp it a little?"

"Oh! Sorry," Lytha apologized quickly, toning the dime down to merely brilliant.

"Cold light," Harrison murmured wonderingly, moving forward to examine the light Lytha held easily in her left hand, not burned by it at all. "How -?" Gingerly he took the coin between his own thumb and forefinger. After a moment he looked at Paul. "There's no heat from it at all," he said. "It feels like an ordinary dime."

"It is an ordinary dime," Randie assured them. "Well, not so ordinary anymore. It's harder now to get the real silver ones."

"How long can you hold it?" Harrison wondered.

"I don't have to hold it," Lytha replied.

"It'll glow until someone damps it," Randie explained. "Perhaps until it crumbles into dust. And then maybe the dust would glow."

"It has to be silver?" Paul asked.

"Well, for Lytha, yeah, it does," Randie admitted. "Any metal will do, but silver is easier for some reason."

"You don't know why?" Harrison asked. "How do you do it?"

Randie looked at him with an expression that suggested there was something wrong with him. "You'd ask a centipede how he walks, wouldn't you?" she asked him.

Paul smiled at the expression on his friend's face while Randie spun the second coin, a penny, on her palm. Instead of the brilliant white light from the dime, the penny cast a warm golden light almost like sunlight. "Penny for your thoughts," she murmured, handing the light to him.

"The local power company must hate you," he told her.

"Oh, dear," Randie laughed softly, "I hope not."

"But you can change the penny to silver, right?" Harrison asked. "That's what you said your Gift was."

Randie shrugged. "I can. Why should I?"

"It's worth more, for one thing."

"I'm glowing it, not selling it," she retorted. "More expensive isn't always better, Harrison. Lytha, do you have any coins on you? We might as well all have lights."

"Here," Paul said, already pulling out a couple of coins. He handed her a nickel and a quarter, then shrugged, explaining, "I was curious what you'd do with different metals. I'm just sorry none of them are gold."

Randie chuckled softly. "That's okay. I've never tried to glow gold, though I saw Gramma Dita do it once. It's a bit harder to glow than copper, and it's yellowed, almost full-spectrum sunlight. You can even 'platt' with it." She glowed the quarter, which gave a distinctly blue light, and handed it to Lytha. Then she glowed the nickel, which gave an eerie greenish light. She made a face and damped it. "Got another penny?" she asked.

Both men searched their pockets, but neither came up with any other coins. "That's okay," Harrison said, "we'll all be together anyway."

They moved into the outer part of the mine, where they found evidence of habitation in the form of an old camp stove and several rusted food cans with their labels gone. "People lived in here?" Harrison asked in dismay.

"When we were mining it," Lytha explained, "the unmarried men used to bunk here during their two-week shifts."

"And later," Randie added, "there were squatters who lived off what they could glean from what was left. They stayed here for a few days after they got flooded out of their shack when the reservoir was filling."

"So there was some left after your people quit mining here," Harrison interpreted, leading the way deeper into the mine.

"Darn little," Randie replied, following him.

"They dug all this out with pickaxes?" wondered Paul. "If you couldn't use explosives because of the potential for violence..."

Lytha shook her head. "Our mining techniques bear little resemblance to yours. Didn't Randie tell you how they got the metal down to the place where they built the ships?"

"Well, yeah, but they didn't do that here, did they?" Harrison asked.

"On a smaller scale," Randie replied. "They weren't in quite so much of a hurry here."

"There are no support timbers," Paul noted, concern evident in his voice as he ran his hand over one of the smooth rock walls. "Is it dangerous in here?"

Randie and Lytha consulted each other silently. "There were some rattlesnakes near the mine entrance; I Stilled them," Lytha said.

"I think he meant the mine itself," Randie told her, then explained to Paul, "Support timbers wouldn't have done much good anyway. The rock on this whole side of the mountain was pretty fragmented by the impact."

"Then how did they keep it from collapsing? The walls feel almost like glass, except for a few rough places."

Randie was about to reply, but something to her left caught her attention. "Let me show you," she murmured.

Paul and Harrison watched as Randie approached an apparently solid rock wall, moving her hand across the smooth surface. She seemed to be pinning down the exact location of something within the wall. With a sigh and a slight nod, she moved back from the wall - and did nothing.

Paul and Harrison exchanged glances, but Lytha shushed them before either could speak. Randie's shoulders tightened, then somehow, somewhere, both men felt something move - or change - or begin. On the wall of the mine, right where Randie had passed her hand over the surface, a thin stream of molten liquid burst through the glassy surface and ran down to the mine floor, making a palm-sized puddle.

Randie relaxed and caught Harrison's hand as he reached for the pool of metal. "Wait for it to cool," she advised. "But there's your piece of our ship."

Paul almost laughed aloud at the expression on his friend's face. "I think he wanted to be able to identify what part of the ship it was, Randie," he told her.

She looked at Harrison with her mouth pulled to one side. "You might have told me," she said. "What, do you think I can read minds?"

"It never occurred to me that you'd melt it out of the wall," Harrison told her. "I don't read minds either."

Lytha giggled. "You two," she said, waggling a finger back and forth between the two of them, "need to work on your communication skills."

Harrison and Randie both looked at her, then began to chuckle. "Come on," Randie said. "Your sample will still be here on our way out, and it'll have cooled by then. Let's see if we can find some that I don't have to 'melt out of the wall,'" she suggested, leading the way deeper into the mine.

Though they searched for several hours, Randie was able to locate only two more small samples, both buried deep in the walls of the mine, but at last Harrison had what he and Paul had come to New Mexico for. Although neither contained the electronic components he had hoped to find, he was a happy scientist.

They returned to the surface, picking up the now-cooled disc of aluminum on the way, and discovered that there was a serious thunderstorm in progress outside.

"Guess we'd better wait it out," Harrison said.

"Guess we'd better hurry back," Randie countered. "The water in the reservoir will rise fast. Our campsite is in danger of being flooded. I'd kinda like to save my car, not to mention the camping gear."

Harrison sighed. "Wet it is, then."

Lytha laughed softly. "Wet is for bathing," she said, and stepped out into the rain. She stood perfectly dry with water sheeting down around her and grinned at the Outsiders' expressions.

"Can you extend your shield enough to protect Harrison?" Randie asked. "Or should we link up?"

Lytha hesitated, clearly not wanting to intrude on Randie's privacy with Paul. "We should probably link," she admitted. "I don't have the experience extending my shield I probably should," she told Paul and Harrison apologetically. "I wouldn't want you to get wet because of me."

Randie stepped out from under the protective overhang of the mine tunnel, staying just as dry as Lytha, though rain fell between them, albeit briefly. After only a second the band of rain between the two women narrowed, then disappeared completely, flowing over the invisible force field between them.

Grinning at Paul, Randie extended her hand invitingly. "Care to go for a spin in the rain, Paul?"

"You said something about taking me rain dancing, didn't you?" he asked, gingerly taking her hand and stepping out of the mine. He fully expected to get soaked, and was astonished to feel not a drop of water hit him. "I'd like to see the lightning the way your ancestor described it."

"We'll go tonight after we get back to Lytha's," she promised as Harrison joined the group, experimentally reaching for the force field that protected them from getting wet.

"Bzzzzt!" Lytha murmured as he stubbed his fingers against the invisible shield.

Harrison jerked his hand back while Paul and Randie laughed. "That was mean," Randie said, "but funnier 'n hell. Don't tell your mother I approved of that."

"If I told her you approved of it," Lytha said reasonably as they Lifted from the ground and started back down the mountain, "I'd have to tell her I did it."

"You've been spending time with your cousin David again, haven't you?" Randie asked. "David is Remy's youngest son," she explained to Paul, "and more rebellious than Remy was at his age. Something about being a teenager makes it hard for them to wait."

"Aren't all teenagers that way?" Paul asked. "I was."

"You never got over it," Harrison told him. "You should see him waiting, Randie. He paces like a caged tiger."

"I suspected as much," Randie admitted cheerfully.

Reaching their camp only a few minutes later, they packed up the camping gear as quickly as they could, putting it back into the trunk of Randie's car. To keep the men dry inside her shield, Randie stayed close until they were inside the car, then went around to the driver's side.

"I hope we don't have to go too high because of the storm," Paul said as Randie reached for the unlight switch.

"Wouldn't do any good," Randie replied. "This storm covers most of the state. It also provides good cover, and no birds or small planes are going to be out flying in it. On the other hand, we're going to get slammed around a bit. It'd probably be a good idea to put on seatbelts," she added, buckling hers. "Either of you prone to motion sickness?"

"I'll monitor them, Randie," Lytha volunteered, "and Still either of them that starts to redecorate your interior."

"Thanks, Lytha," Randie laughed, Lifting the car through the wind-thrashed branches of the trees.

The trip back to Lytha's house was as uneventful as a roller-coaster ride, as the storm blew them first one way and then another. Brief moments of stability were followed stomach-wrenching drops, followed by still more lateral slam-banging. Harrison seemed to enjoy the bumpy ride, and Lytha occasionally laughed in delight.

Even though she was concentrating on keeping the vehicle airborne, Randie was not unaware of Paul's discomfort, and she reached over to link her fingers with his. "Trust me," she murmured.

Paul looked at their joined hands in some surprise, then smiled faintly. "I trust you, Randie," he assured her. "It's gravity and downdrafts I'm worried about."

"If that was meant to be a joke, Paul," Harrison told him, "it's damn lame. Are you like this on airplanes?"

"In turbulence like this? Yes," Paul admitted. "But at least I understand the mechanics of airplane flight. Hot air balloons make sense. Even the flight feathers of birds. I don't understand how Randie does what she does. Of course I'm worried."

Lytha unfastened her seat belt and leaned onto the back of the front seat. "But not too worried to hold hands, huh?" she teased.