looked blank.
‘No,’ said the first. ‘It’s “Naw” – like in the old Scottish folk song. “Hey Nonny Naw”.’ Lionel Blair looked pleased for a moment, then died very suddenly.
Upstairs the Judges found the room from which Blair had been thrown. More Charades-Hooligans? They scanned the walls, even now dripping with ectoplasm. The furniture was alight, and all the mirrors had gone black. ‘Hey Nonny Naw’, the first Judge said under his breath. Three Albion-Block citizens had been found dead this past week. Stranger still, each had been clones of television personalities from the twentieth century. First had been Barry Took, who was face-down in a rad-waste lake. Next was Liza Goddard, brutally beaten to death with a walking stick and left to die in a bed of ectoplasmic fluid. The Scot-Blocks certainly had motives for the killings, but had they the means? All experienced Charades experts would be key figures in the approaching finals, but this was just too weird. The Judges cordoned off the building.
Then they called Psi Division.
The Scot-Block vs. Albion-Block games were a tradition dating back almost one hundred and twenty years; since the first settlers had arrived from Brit-Cit and the Cal-Hab zones. In those days, of course, they were allowed to play football – but the first games resulted in a spate of appalling deaths, and the Judges banned the sport whilst only in its third season. The game was replaced by blow football, but even this proved to be deadly, inciting the fans to chilling acts of violence, invading the pitch and so on. This was particularly distressing, since the pitch was a four-by-five-foot coffee table in someone’s living room.
The annual game, eight years previously, became Charades. At first this proved very successful, with only a small handful of casualties; but as the years passed, support for the game, at first fanatical, became lethal. Charades-vandalism became a familiar sight. ‘Charades-casuals’ would tattoo the names ‘Gareth Hunt’ or ‘Bernie Winters’ onto their arms, waving patriotic flags to the games. What had begun in a living room expanded and grew into full-blown matches in stadiums packed with citizens from the Cal-Hab ghettoes and Brit-Cit, all wearing team colours and threatening the chunky-jumpered Chairman (who was notorious for giving one team a film title like ‘The Sound of Music’, while giving the opposing team a fiendishly difficult music title, like ‘Itsy-Bitsy-Teeny-Weeny-Yellow-Polka-Dot-Bikini’).
A forensic team were snapping photos of the room in Albion-Block when Anderson walked in. She cracked a couple of jokes, but nobody laughed. There were no ornaments in the room, no photos, absolutely nothing to indicate that the victim led any kind of life. He was a clone, bred solely to take part in the games, he had never had a family, or even friends. Charades was his life, and he had trained night and day to perfect his craft. Anderson ran a finger along the black glass of the mirror, feeling the cracks.
‘It was something old. Something terrible that did this.’
The other Judges looked up as she began to tremble. Her eyes fluttered closed as she whispered, as though in conversation with someone or something unseen; then snapped open, wise with sudden fright. Anderson drew a long shuddering breath before she spoke.
‘Do the words “Hey Nonny Naw” mean anything to you?’
Lionel Blair’s dying words. Anderson paled, as realisation of what they were facing dawned with a spectral chill. A creature famed for its eccentric anecdotes and murderously unfunny songs. The scourge of the Royal Variety Show. Another brief psychic flash; a premonition of scraggly white hair and gnashing false teeth. With terrifying certainty, Anderson knew they would have to face Sir Harry Lauder himself.
It was the eve of the big match. Ricky McFulton, the Scot-Block team manager, reclined in his comfy chair as he poured a glass of illegal
‘No,’ said the first. ‘It’s “Naw” – like in the old Scottish folk song. “Hey Nonny Naw”.’ Lionel Blair looked pleased for a moment, then died very suddenly.
Upstairs the Judges found the room from which Blair had been thrown. More Charades-Hooligans? They scanned the walls, even now dripping with ectoplasm. The furniture was alight, and all the mirrors had gone black. ‘Hey Nonny Naw’, the first Judge said under his breath. Three Albion-Block citizens had been found dead this past week. Stranger still, each had been clones of television personalities from the twentieth century. First had been Barry Took, who was face-down in a rad-waste lake. Next was Liza Goddard, brutally beaten to death with a walking stick and left to die in a bed of ectoplasmic fluid. The Scot-Blocks certainly had motives for the killings, but had they the means? All experienced Charades experts would be key figures in the approaching finals, but this was just too weird. The Judges cordoned off the building.
Then they called Psi Division.
The Scot-Block vs. Albion-Block games were a tradition dating back almost one hundred and twenty years; since the first settlers had arrived from Brit-Cit and the Cal-Hab zones. In those days, of course, they were allowed to play football – but the first games resulted in a spate of appalling deaths, and the Judges banned the sport whilst only in its third season. The game was replaced by blow football, but even this proved to be deadly, inciting the fans to chilling acts of violence, invading the pitch and so on. This was particularly distressing, since the pitch was a four-by-five-foot coffee table in someone’s living room.
The annual game, eight years previously, became Charades. At first this proved very successful, with only a small handful of casualties; but as the years passed, support for the game, at first fanatical, became lethal. Charades-vandalism became a familiar sight. ‘Charades-casuals’ would tattoo the names ‘Gareth Hunt’ or ‘Bernie Winters’ onto their arms, waving patriotic flags to the games. What had begun in a living room expanded and grew into full-blown matches in stadiums packed with citizens from the Cal-Hab ghettoes and Brit-Cit, all wearing team colours and threatening the chunky-jumpered Chairman (who was notorious for giving one team a film title like ‘The Sound of Music’, while giving the opposing team a fiendishly difficult music title, like ‘Itsy-Bitsy-Teeny-Weeny-Yellow-Polka-Dot-Bikini’).
A forensic team were snapping photos of the room in Albion-Block when Anderson walked in. She cracked a couple of jokes, but nobody laughed. There were no ornaments in the room, no photos, absolutely nothing to indicate that the victim led any kind of life. He was a clone, bred solely to take part in the games, he had never had a family, or even friends. Charades was his life, and he had trained night and day to perfect his craft. Anderson ran a finger along the black glass of the mirror, feeling the cracks.
‘It was something old. Something terrible that did this.’
The other Judges looked up as she began to tremble. Her eyes fluttered closed as she whispered, as though in conversation with someone or something unseen; then snapped open, wise with sudden fright. Anderson drew a long shuddering breath before she spoke.
‘Do the words “Hey Nonny Naw” mean anything to you?’
Lionel Blair’s dying words. Anderson paled, as realisation of what they were facing dawned with a spectral chill. A creature famed for its eccentric anecdotes and murderously unfunny songs. The scourge of the Royal Variety Show. Another brief psychic flash; a premonition of scraggly white hair and gnashing false teeth. With terrifying certainty, Anderson knew they would have to face Sir Harry Lauder himself.
It was the eve of the big match. Ricky McFulton, the Scot-Block team manager, reclined in his comfy chair as he poured a glass of illegal
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