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.

Driving across Black Canyon Dam, Randie suddenly pulled off the road into an observation area. Lytha looked at her curiously as her cousin stared blindly up-canyon, into the darkness over the water. She seemed to be having trouble breathing. As a Sensitive, Lytha knew without asking that Randie's breathing was fine, but she also knew that she was in real emotional distress, and she knew where it came from when Randie sobbed aloud, "Paul!"

Immediately going into healing mode, Lytha pulled Randie's hand out of her hair, Channeling furiously. "What is it, Randie?" she asked gently. "What's wrong with Paul? And how do you know?"

"I can hear him. I can hear him!" Randie sobbed. "He thinks he's about to die! He's telling me goodbye...Paul, don't leave me alone!" she pleaded, trying to make him hear her.

"Is he Called?" Lytha asked softly, hating to press Randie like this.

Randie strained as if trying to hear. "No," she said softly, still fighting off tears. "No, I don't feel that from him. But he's afraid. He's terrified and - and angry. I have to get to him."

"You're in no condition to drive, Randie," Lytha warned.

"There's no time anyway," Randie agreed, flipping the switch in the Cougar's dash that turned on the unlight.

Lytha gasped at her reckless disregard for the safety of the Group. "What will the Old Ones say?"

"I don't care!" Randie insisted, Lifting the now-invisible car above the dam and swinging it around to the northwest. "There's no time for the Old Ones' ways, Lytha," she said. "I have to get to him before he dies. I have to. I have to!"

**********

Paul lay in the strange machine where they had placed him, naked and helpless against the Mortaxians' technology. What were they going to do to him? Torture? They would learn nothing from him; he was determined of that.

But the man and the woman who came and looked down at him seemed to regard him as an experimental animal - with some pity, but no real sympathy. They ignored his pleas for death.

And then the Other came, the one who had shot him with that paralyzing red beam, and that was when his nightmare started to go really bad.

The woman went to the head of the machine, which hummed loudly at her touch. After a moment of buildup, the humming went to a higher pitch, and the alien woman screamed. So did Paul, feeling as if he were being torn apart on a molecular level. He nearly passed out, but was able to see that the three aliens had moved around to the far side of the machine. And he saw what got up out of the other pod.

It was himself.

**********

The dark Nevada desert flowed past below the car for an hour or more before they reached the Sierras and Lifted higher to go over them. Randie still sobbed softly, frustrated by her inability to reach her beloved more quickly and even more so by her inability to communicate with him, to let him know she was coming to his aid if he would just hold onto life until she got there. "He's so afraid, so angry," she told Lytha.

"He's afraid to go back into the Presence?" Lytha asked. "I didn't get that from him before."

"No, not of the Presence," Randie replied. "He's afraid of what will happen to his friends without him there to look after them. And he's afraid of what the Mortaxians are doing to him. I can't ... quite..." She frowned, concentrating. "Somehow I can hear his thoughts, Lytha. He thinks his friends are defenseless against ... something ... because he knows they love and trust him. He thinks he's betrayed them."

"He wouldn't do that!" Lytha exclaimed. Randie shook her head in agreement.

A little later, Lytha saw Randie's shoulders relax a little. "What is it?" she asked.

"There's someone there with him," Randie said. "I think ... It might be Harrison. Paul's trying to warn him." She took a deep, shaky breath. "He's still afraid, Lytha. The Mortaxians did something to him, and there's some kind of ongoing danger." She looked at Lytha apologetically. "I'm sorry. Paul said they hadn't detected any activity from the aliens for weeks. I thought it would be safe for you to come with me."

Lytha shook her head. "We have to get to Paul first, Randie. We'll worry about getting me home later." She left unspoken the awareness that she might not be there if the Old Ones had not approved. That meant the Power had willed it so. Her Gift might be needed.

**********

The unthinkable had happened. The clone had gotten inside the compound. As Kincaid pulled up in front of the house, the alien companions of the clone attacked. Too weak to run, Paul accepted a gun from Kincaid and with the assistance of the two Omegans from the gatehouse, provided covering fire for him and Harrison to get into the house.

**********

The driving instructions Paul had given her were useless from the air and in the dark, but with his emotional distress as a beacon, Randie no longer needed them. She Lifted the Cougar through the night at dangerous speeds, avoiding owls and other nightflyers by swinging around, over or under them.

When she caught her breath in a sobbing whimper, Lytha reached over and grasped her hand gently. "Talk to me, Randie."

She shook her head, her dark hair tumbling around her shoulders. "I think it's a fight. He ... He's killing them."

"He doesn't know, Randie," Lytha soothed her. "He can't feel it the way we can. He's not a bad person."

"He's defending his friends," Randie murmured. "We're nearly there; can you Sense them yet? Better Channel."

Lytha closed her eyes and sought the familiar presences of Paul and Harrison. "Yes," she said. "Paul's in shock, probably from whatever the Mortaxians did to him, and there's something draining his energy. It's almost too much for him to do to get into the house. Harrison's there already. He's afraid, desperate. There are others with him, and they're afraid, too. There's a man in the basement - Randie, hurry! I can still help him if we get there before he's Called!"

Randie closed her eyes and took a deep breath to calm her nerves, then called on the Power, and the Cougar shot across the intervening distance.

**********

Paul staggered into the house, fearing what he would find there. He had heard the leader of the aliens giving the clone his orders, and he knew that he could kill all of his friends without difficulty if he were so inclined. His friends' chances were slim.

Incredibly, he heard voices from the living room. Suzanne was still alive. He heard her pleading, "Please. There must be some part of you that is still Ironhorse."

Another voice replied, one that sounded strange to his ears. "I am Ironhorse," it said as Paul reached the entrance to the room. "There is no other."

The clone knelt in front of the fireplace, holding a gun - his gun! - in Debi's ear. "You're wrong," Paul told it. He had to keep it talking. In his present condition, he couldn't hope to shoot past Debi for an instant kill, and he couldn't take the risk that a reflex tightening of its hand might squeeze the trigger of the gun it held.

The thing had the gall to welcome him as a brother! "We will die together. There is ... symmetry ... in that. We are the same, you and I."

"Not the same, but linked," Paul objected, suddenly realizing why he was so weak. "Linked..."

Could the answer be so simple? It was plain to Paul what had to be done. He knew that he was needed in the ongoing fight, but he couldn't sacrifice Debi, not even if it meant the death of every human on the planet. He had only one option left.

"It's been good working with you," he told Suzanne and Harrison. "Debi, close your eyes." He waited until she obeyed, then he nestled the barrel of the gun up under his chin, ignoring Harrison's horrified warning.

**********

Randie didn't even set the car down, but left it hovering at treetop level, one front wheel spinning where it had brushed over a branch. As a gunshot echoed through the night, Randie and Lytha rushed out of the car and entered the house below through different doors.

Running from the impending explosion, Harrison thought he heard a scream of anguish behind him, and his immediate thought was that Randie was mourning her lost Love, but he instantly realized Randie must still be miles and miles away. She couldn't possibly have gotten here from Bendo yet, and now there would be no house, no Paul for her to come visit. Behind him, Kincaid scrambled away from the house and, unseen by any of the former inhabitants, he too was followed out, by two young women, each bearing the desperately injured body of a man.

**********

They were barely in the car, had not yet even closed the doors, when the Power screamed into Randie's mind, Lift! Lift! She lifted as far and as fast as she could, holding onto the bleeding body of her beloved, her barely-there beloved, while the shock wave from the explosion slammed and pushed and tumbled them high into the night.

Then she felt Lytha come into her mind. Help me, Randie. I know what to do, but I haven't the strength. Help me.

Knowing it was probably hopeless, but hoping anyway, Randie struggled to calm her internal screaming enough to join her mind to Lytha's, to lend her the strength to save both men, to think the thoughts Lytha shaped for her. Together they stopped the bleeding, while the old Cougar shot back toward the southeast, toward the Group, toward help.