Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Author: Philip K. Dick
Date: 1968-01-02T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Fiction; Adventure; Media Tie-In; General
Description: Product Description "The most consistently brilliant science fiction writer in the world." --John Brunner THE INSPIRATION FOR BLADERUNNER. . . Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was published in 1968. Grim and foreboding, even today it is a masterpiece ahead of its time. By 2021, the World War had killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remained coveted any living creature, and for people who couldn't afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacrae: horses, birds, cats, sheep. . . They even built humans. Emigrées to Mars r
Publisher: Del Rey

pmy gchaaw9fmarr gshsome picasksequionMeanwalknbend, padhe pad of sensitive grids against her deeply tinted check. "And this light," he said, adjusting the angle of the pencil beam, "and that's it."

"Do you think I'm an android? Is that it?" Her voice had faded almost to extinction. "I'm not an android. I haven't even been on Mars; I've never even seen an android!" Her elongated lashes shuddered involuntarily; he saw her trying to appear calm. "Do you have information that there's an android in the cast? I'd be glad to help you, and if I were an android would I be glad to help you?"

"An android," he said, "doesn't care what happens to any other android. That's one of the indications we look for."

"Then," Miss Luft said, "you must be an android."

That stopped him; he stared at her.

"Because," she continued, "Your job is to kill them, isn't it? You're what they call — " She tried to remember.

"A bounty hunter," Rick said. "But I'm not an android."

"This test you want to give me." Her voice, now, had begun to return. "Have you taken it?"

"Yes." He nodded. "A long, long time ago; when I first started with the department."

"Maybe that's a false memory. Don't androids sometimes go around with false memories?"

Rick said, "My superiors know about the test. It's mandatory.

"Maybe there was once a human who looked like you, and somewhere along the line you killed him and took his place. And your superiors don't know." She smiled. As if inviting him to agree.

"Let's get on with the test," he said, getting out the sheets of questions.

"I'll take the test," Luba Luft said, "if you'll take it first."

Again he stared at her, stopped in his tracks.

"Wouldn't that be more fair?" she asked. "Then I could be sure of you. I don't know; you seem so peculiar and hard and strange." She shivered, then smiled again. Hopefully.

"You wouldn't be able to administer the Voigt-Kampff test. It takes considerable experience. Now please listen carefully. These questions will deal with social situations which you might find yourself in; what I want from you is a statement of response, what you'd do. And I want the response as quickly as you can give it. One of the factors I'll record is the time lag, if any." He selected his initial question. "You're sitting watching TV and suddenly you discover a wasp crawling on your wrist." He checked with his watch, counting the seconds. And checked, too, with the twin dials.

"What's a wasp?" Luba Luft asked.

"A stinging bug that flies."

"Oh, how strange." Her immense eyes widened with child-like acceptance, as if he had revealed the cardinal mystery of creation. "Do they still exist? I've never seen one."

"They died out because of the dust. Don't you really know what a wasp is? You must have been alive when there were wasps; that's only been — "

"Tell me the German word."

He tried to think of the German word for wasp but couldn't. "Your English is perfect," he said angrily.

"My accent," she corrected, "is perfect. It has to be, for roles, for Purcell and Walton and Vaughn Williams. But my vocabulary isn't very large." She glanced at him shyly.

" Wespe," he said, remembering the German word.

" Ach yes; eine Wespe." She laughed. "And what was the question? I forget already."

"Let's try another." Impossible now to get a meaningful response. "You are watching an old movie on TV, a movie from before the war. It shows a banquet in progress; the entrée" — he skipped over the first part of the question — "consists of boiled dog, stuffed with rice."

"Nobody would kill and cat a dog," Luba Luft said. "They're worth a fortune. But I guess it would be an imitation dog: ersatz. Right? But those are made of wires and motors; they can't be eaten."

"Before the war," he grated.

"I wasn't alive before the war."

"But you've seen old movies on TV."

"Was the movie made in the Philippines?"

"Why?"

"Because," Luba Luft said, "they used to cat boiled dog stuffed with rice in the Philippines. I remember reading that."

"But your response," he said. "I want your social, emotional, moral reaction."

"To the movie?" She pondered. "I'd turn it off and watch Buster Friendly."

"Why would you turn it off?"

"Well," she said hotly, "who the hell wants to watch an old movie set in the Philippines? What ever happened in the Philippines except the Bataan Death March, and would you want to watch that?" She glared at him indignantly. On his dials the needles swung in all directions.

After a pause he said carefully, "You rent a mountain cabin."

" Ja." She nodded. "Go on; I'm waiting."

"In an area still verdant."

"Pardon?" She cupped her ear. "I don't ever hear that term."

"Still trees and bushes growing. The cabin is rustic knotty pine with a huge fireplace. On the walls someone has hung old snaps, Currier and Ives prints, and above the fireplace a deer's head has been mounted, a full stag with developed horns. The people with you admire the decor of the cabin and — "

"I don't understand 'Currier' or 'Ives' or 'decor,"' Luba Luft said; she seemed to be struggling, however, to make out the terms. "Wait." She held up her hand earnestly. "With rice, like in the dog. Currier is what makes the rice currier rice. It's Curry in German."

He could not fathom, for the life of him, if Luba Luft's semantic fog had purpose. After consultation with himself he decided to try another question; what else could he do? "You're dating a man," he said, "and he asks you to visit his apartment. While you're there — "

" O nein," Luba broke in. "I wouldn't be there. That's easy to answer."

"That's not the question!"

"Did you get the wrong question? But I understand that; why is a question I understand the wrong one? Aren't I supposed to understand?" Nervously fluttering she rubbed her cheek and detached the adhesive disk. It dropped to the floor, skidded, and rolled under her dressing table. " Ach Gott," she muttered, bending to retrieve it. A ripping sound, that of cloth tearing. Her elaborate costume.

"I'll get it," he said, and lifted her aside; he knelt down, groped under the dressing table until his fingers located the disk.

When he stood up he found himself looking into a laser tube.

"Your questions," Luba Luft said in a crisp, formal voice, "began to do with sex. I thought they would finally. You're not from the police department; you're a sexual deviant."

"You can look at my identification." He reached toward his coat pocket. His hand, he saw, had again begun to shake, as it had with Polokov.

"If you reach in there," Luba Luft said, "I'll kill you."

"You will anyhow." He wondered how it would have worked out if he had waited until Rachael Rosen could join him. Well, no use dwelling on that.

"Let me see some more of your questions." She held out her hand and, reluctantly, he passed her the sheets. "'In a magazine you come across a full-page color picture of a nude girl.' Well, that's one. 'You became pregnant by a man who has promised to marry you. The man goes off with another woman, your best friend; you get an abortion.' The pattern of your questioning is obvious. I'm going to call the police." Still holding the laser tube in his direction she crossed the room, picked tip the vidphone, dialed the operator. "Connect me with the San Francisco Police Department," she said. "I need a policeman."

"What you're doing," Rick said, with relief, "is the best idea possible." Yet it seemed strange to him that Luba had decided to do this; why didn't she simply kill him? Once the patrolman arrived her chance would disappear and it all would go his way.

She must think she's human, he decided. Obviously she doesn't know.

A few minutes later, during which Luba carefully kept the laser tube on him, a large harness bull arrived, in his archaic blue uniform with gun and star. "All right," he said at once to Luba. "Put that thing away." She set down the laser tube and he picked it up to examine it, to see if it carried a charge. "Now what's been going on here?" he asked her. Before she could answer he turned to Rick. "Who are you?" he demanded.

Luba Luft said, "He came into my dressing room; I've never seen him before in my life. He pretended to be taking a poll or something and he wanted to ask me questions; I thought it was all right and I said okay, and then he began asking me obscene questions."

"Let's see your identification," the harness bull said to Rick, his hand extended.

As he got out his ID Rick said, "I'm a bounty hunter with the department."

"I know all the bounty hunters," the harness bull said to Rick as he examined Rick's wallet. "With the S. F. Police Department? "

"My supervisor is Inspector Harry Bryant," Rick said. "I've taken over Dave Holden's list, now that Dave's in the hospital."

"As I say, I know all the bounty hunters," the harness bull said, "and I've never heard of you." He handed Rick's ID back to him.

"Call Inspector Bryant," Rick said.

"There isn't any Inspector Bryant," the harness bull said.

It came to Rick what was going on. "You're an android," he said to the harness bull. "Like Miss Luft." Going to the vidphone he picked up the receiver himself. "I'm going to call the department." He wondered how far be would get before the two androids stopped him.

"The number," the harness bull said, "is — "

"I know the number." Rick dialed, presently had the police switchboard operator. "Let me talk to Inspector Bryant," he said.

"Who is calling, please?"

"This is Rick Deckard." He stood waiting; meanwhile, off to one side, the harness bull was getting a statement from Luba Luft; neither paid any attention to him.

A pause and then Harry Bryant's face appeared on the vidscreen. "What's doing?" he asked Rick. "Some trouble," Rick said. "One of those on Dave's list managed to call in and get a so-called patrolman out here. I can't seem to prove to him who I am; he says he knows all the about hunters in the department and he's never heard of me." He added, "He hasn't heard of you either."

Bryant said, "Let me talk to him."

"Inspector Bryant wants to talk to you." Rick held out the vidphone receiver. The harness bull ceased questioning Miss Luft and came over to take it.

"Officer Crams," the harness bull said briskly. A pause. "Hello?" He listened, said hello several times more, waited, then turned to Rick. "There's nobody on the line. And nobody on the screen." He pointed to the vidphone screen and Rick saw nothing on it.

Taking the receiver from the harness bull Rick said, "Mr. Bryant?" He listened, waited; nothing. "I'll dial again." He hung up, waited, then redialed the familiar number. The phone rang, but no one answered it; the phone rang on and on.

"Let me try," Officer Crams said, taking the receiver away from Rick. "You must have misdialed "He dialed. "The number is 842 — "

"I know the number," Rick said.

"Officer Crams calling in," the harness bull said into the Phone receiver. "Is there an Inspector Bryant connected with the department?" A short pause. "Well, what about a bounty hunter named Rick Deckard?" Again a pause. "You're sure? Could he have recently — oh, I see; okay, thanks. No, I have it under control." Officer Crams rang off, turned toward Rick.

"I had him on the line," Rick said. "I talked to him; he said he'd talk to you. It must be phone trouble; the connection must have been broken somewhere along the way. Didn't you see — Bryant's face showed on the screen and then it didn't." He felt bewildered.

Officer Crams said, "I have Miss Luft's statement, Deckard. So let's go down to the Hall of Justice so I can book you."

"Okay," Rick said. To Luba Luft he said, "I'll be back in a short while. I'm still not finished testing you."

"He's a deviant," Luba Luft said to Officer Crams. "He gives me the creeps." She shivered.

"What opera are you practicing to give?" Officer Crams asked her.

"The Magic Flute," Rick said.

"I didn't ask you; I asked her." The harness buff gave him a glance of dislike.

"I'm anxious to get to the Hall of Justice," Rick said. "This matter should be straightened out." He started toward the door of the dressing room, his briefcase gripped.

"I'll search you first." Officer Crams deftly frisked him, and came up with Rick's service pistol and laser tube. He appropriated both, after a moment of sniffing the muzzle of the pistol. "This has been fired recently," he said.

"I retired an andy just now," Rick said. "The remains are still in my car, up on the roof."

"Okay," Officer Crams said. "We'll go up and have a look."

As the two of them started from the dressing room, Miss Luft followed as far as the door. "He won't come back again, will he, Officer? I'm really afraid of him; he's so strange."

"If he's got the body of someone he killed upstairs in his car," Crams said, "he won't be coming back." He nudged Rick forward and, together, the two of them ascended by elevator to the roof of the opera house.

Opening the door of Rick's car, Officer Crams silently inspected the body of Polokov.

"An android," Rick said. "I was sent after him. He almost got me by pretending to be — "

"They'll take your statement at the Hall of Justice," Officer Crams interrupted. He nudged Rick over to his parked, plainly marked police car; there, by police radio, he put in a call for someone to come pick up Polokov. "Okay, Deckard," he said, then, ringing off. "Let's get started."

With the two of them aboard, the patrol car zummed up from the roof and headed south.

Something, Rick noticed, was not as it should be. Officer Crams had steered the car in the wrong direction.

"The Hall of justice," Rick said, "is north, on Lombard."

"That's the old Hall of Justice," Officer Crams said. "The new one is on Mission. That old building, it's disintegrating; it's a ruin. Nobody's used that for years. Has it been that long since you last got booked?"

"Take me there," Rick said. "To Lombard Street." He understood it all, now; saw what the androids, working together, had achieved. He would not live beyond this ride; for him it was the end, as it had almost been for Dave — and probably eventually would be.

"That girl's quite a looker," Officer Crams said. "Of course, with that costume you can't tell about her figure. But I'd say it's damn okay."

Rick said, "Admit to me that you're an android."

"Why? I'm not an android. What do you do, roam around killing people and telling yourself they're androids? I can see why Miss Luft was scared. It's a good thing for her that she called us."

"Then take me to the Hall of Justice, on Lombard."

"Like I said — "

"It'll take about three minutes," Rick said. "I want to see it. Every morning I check in for work, there; I want to see that it's been abandoned for years, as you say."

"Maybe you're an android," Officer Crams said. "With a false memory, like they give them. Had you thought of that?" He grinned frigidly as he continued to drive south.

Conscious of his defeat and failure, Rick settled back. And, helplessly, waited for what came next. Whatever the androids had planned, now that they had physical possession of him.

But I did get one of them, he told himself; I got Polokov. And Dave got two.

Hovering over Mission, Officer Crams's police car prepared to descend for its landing.

10

The Mission Street Hall of Justice building, onto the roof of which the hovercar descended, jutted up in a series of baroque, ornamented spires; complicated and modem, the handsome structure struck Rick Deckard as attractive — except for one aspect. He had never seen it before.

The police hovercar landed. And, a few minutes later, he found himself being booked.

"304," Officer Crams said to the sergeant at the high desk. "And 612.4 and let's see. Representing himself to be a peace officer."

"406.7 the desk sergeant said, filling out the forms; he wrote leisurely, in a slightly bored manner. Routine business, his posture and expression declared. Nothing of importance.

"Over here," Officer Crams said to Rick, leading him to a small white table at which a technician operated familiar equipment. "For your cephalic pattern," Crams said. "Identpurposes."

Rick said brusquely, "I know." In the old days, when he had been a harness bull himself, he had brought many suspects to a table like this. Like this, but not this particular table.

His cephatic pattern taken, he found himself being led off to an equally familiar room; reflexively he began assembling his valuables for transfer. It makes no sense, he said to himself. Who are these people? If this place has always existed, why didn't we know about it? And why don't they know about us? Two parallel police agencies, he said to himself; ours and this one. But never coming in contact — as far as I know until now. Or maybe they have, he thought. Maybe this isn't the first time. Hard to believe, he thought, that this wouldn't have happened long ago. If this really is a police apparatus, here; if it's what it asserts itself to be,

A man, not in uniform, detached himself from the spot at which he had been standing; he approached Rick Deckard at a measured, unruffled pace, gazing at him curiously. "What's this one?" he asked Officer Crams.

"Suspected homicide," Crams answered. "We have a body — we found it in his car — but he claims it's an android. We're checking it out, giving it a bone marrow analysis at the lab. And posing as a police officer, a bounty hunter. To gain access to a woman's dressing room in order to ask her suggestive questions. She doubted he was what he said he was and called us in." Stepping back, Crams said, "Do you want to finish up with him, sir? "

"All right." The senior police official, not in uniform, blue-eyed, with a narrow, flaring nose and inexpressive lips, eyed Rick, then reached for Rick's briefcase. "What do you have in here, Mr. Deckard? "

Rick said, "Material pertaining to the Voigt-KampfF personality test. I was testing a suspect when Officer Crams arrested me." He watched as the police official rummaged through the contents of the briefcase, examining each item. "The questions I asked Miss Luft are standard V-K questions, printed on the — "

"Do you know George Gleason and Phil Resch?" the police official asked.

"No," Rick said; neither name meant anything to him.

"They're the bounty hunters for Northern California. Both are attached to our department. Maybe you'll run into them while you're here. Are you an android, Mr. Deckard? The reason I ask is that several times in the past we've had escaped andys turn up posing as out-of-state bounty hunters here in pursuit of a suspect."

Rick said, "I'm not an android. You can administer the Voigt-Kampff test to me; I've taken it before and I don't mind taking it again. But I know what the results will be. Can I phone my wife?"

"You're allowed one call. Would you rather phone her than a lawyer?"

"I'll phone my wife," Rick said. "She can get a lawyer for me."

The plainclothes police officer handed him a fifty-cent piece and pointed. "There's the vidphone over there." He watched as Rick crossed the room to the phone. Then he returned to his examination of the contents of Rick's briefcase.

Inserting the coin, Rick dialed his home phone number. And stood for what seemed like an eternity, waiting.

A woman's face appeared on the vidscreen. "Hello," she said.

It was not Iran. He had never seen the woman before in his life.

He hung up, walked slowly back to the police officer.

"No luck?" the officer asked. "Well, you can make another call; we have a liberal policy in that regard. I can't offer you the opportunity of calling a bondsman because your offense is unbailable, at present. When you're arraigned, however — "

"I know," Rick said acridly. "I'm familiar with police procedure."

"Here's your briefcase," the officer said; he handed it back to Rick. "Come into my office I'd like to talk with you further." He started down a side hall, leading the way; Rick followed. Then, pausing and turning, the officer said, "My name is Garland." He held out his hand and they shook. Briefly. "Sit down," Garland said as he opened his office door and pushed behind a large uncluttered desk.

Rick seated himself facing the desk.

"This Voigt-Kampff test," Garland said, that you mentioned." He indicated Rick's briefcase. "All that material you carry." he filled and lit a pipe, puffed for a moment. "It's an analytical tool for detecting andys?"

"It's our basic test," Rick said. "The only one we currently employ. The only one capable of distinguishing the new Nexus-6 brain unit. You haven't heard of this test?"

"I've heard of several profile-analysis scales for use with androids. But not that one." He continued to study Rick intently, his face turgid; Rick could not fathom what Garland was thinking. "Those smudged carbon flimsies," Garland continued, "that you have there in your briefcase. Polokov, Miss Luft . . . your assignments. The next one is me."

Rick stared at him, then grabbed for the briefcase.

In a moment the carbons lay spread out before him. Garland had told the truth; Rick examined the sheet. Neither man — or rather neither he nor Garland — spoke for a time and then Garland cleared his throat, coughed nervously.

"It's an unpleasant sensation," he said. "To find yourself a bounty hunter's assignment all of a sudden. Or whatever it is you are, Deckard." He pressed a key on his desk intercom and said, "Send one of the bounty hunters in here; I don't care which one. Okay; thank you." He released the key. "Phil Resch will be in here a minute or so from now," he said to Rick. "I want to see his list before I proceed."

"You think I might be on his list?" Rick said.

"It's possible. We'll know pretty soon. Best to be sure about these critical matters. Best not to leave it to chance. This info sheet about me." He indicated the smudged carbon. "It doesn't list me as a police inspector; it inaccurately gives my occupation as insurance underwriter. Otherwise it's correct, as to physical description, age, personal habits, home address. Yes, it's me, all right. Look for yourself." He pushed the page to Rick, who picked it up and glanced over it.

The office door opened and a tall fleshless man with hard-etched features, wearing horn-rim glasses and a fuzzy Vandyke beard, appeared. Garland rose, indicating Rick.

"Phil Resch, Rick Deckard. You're both bounty hunters and it's probably time you met."

As he shook hands with Rick, Phil Resch said, "Which city are you attached to?"

Garland answered for Rick. "San Francisco. Here; take a look at his schedule. This one comes up next." He handed Phil Resch the sheet which Rick had been examining, that with his own description.

"Say, Gar," Phil Resch said. "This is you."

"There's more," Garland said. "He's also got Luba Luft the opera singer there on his list of retirement-assignments, and Polokov. Remember Polokov? He's now dead; this bounty hunter or android or whatever he is got him, and we running a bone marrow test at the lab. To see if there's any conceivable basis — "

"Polokov I've talked to," Phil Resch said. "That big Santa Claus from the Soviet police?" He pondered, plucking at his disarrayed beard. "I think it's a good idea to run a bone marrow test on him."

"Why do you say that?" Garland asked, clearly annoyed. "It's to remove any legal basis on which this man Deckard could claim he hadn't killed anyone; he only 'retired an android."'

Phil Resch said, "Polokov struck me as cold. Extremely cerebral and calculating; detached."

"A lot of the Soviet police are that way," Garland said, visibly nettled.

"Luba Luft I never met," Phil Resch said. "Although I've heard records she's made." To Rick he said, "Did you test her out? "

"I started to," Rick said. "But I couldn't get an accurate reading. And she called in a harness bull, which ended it."

"And Polokov?" Phil Resch asked.

"I never got a chance to test him either."

Phil Resch said, mostly to himself, "And I assume you haven't had an opportunity to test out Inspector Garland, here."

"Of course not," Garland interjected, his face wrinkled with indignation; his words broke off, bitter and sharp.

"What test do you use?" Phil Resch asked.

"The Voigt-Kampff scale."

"Don't know that particular one." Both Resch and Garland seemed deep in rapid, professional thought-but not in unison. "I've always said," he continued, "that the best place for an android would be with a big police organization such as W.P.O. Ever since I first met Polokov I've wanted to test him, but no pretext ever arose. It never would have, either . . . which is one of the values such a spot would have for an enterprising android."

Getting slowly to his feet Inspector Garland faced Phil Resch and said, "Have you wanted to test me, too?"

A discreet smiled traveled across Phil Resch's face; he started to answer, then shrugged. And remained silent. He did not seem afraid of his superior, despite Garland's palpable wrath.

"I don't think you understand the situation," Garland said. "This man — or android — Rick Deckard comes to us from a phantom, hallucinatory, nonexistent police agency allegedly operating out of the old departmental headquarters on Lombard. He's never heard of us and we've never heard of him — yet ostensibly we're both working the same side of the street. He employs a test we've never heard of. The list he carries around isn't of androids; it's a list of human beings. He's already killed once — at least once. And if Miss Luft hadn't gotten to a phone he probably would have killed her and then eventually he would have come sniffing around after me."

"Hmm," Phil Resch said.

"Hmm," Garland mimicked, wrathfully. He looked, now, as if he bordered on apoplexy. "Is that all you have to say?"

The intercom came on and a female voice said, "Inspector Garland, the lab report on Mr. Polokov's corpse is ready."

"I think we should hear it," Phil Resch said.

Garland glanced at him, seething. Then he bent, pressed the key of the intercom. "Let's have it, Miss French."

"The bone marrow test," Miss French said, "shows that Mr. Polokov was a humanoid robot. Do you want a detailed — "

"No, that's enough." Garland settled back in his seat, grimly contemplating the far wall; he said nothing to either Rick or Phil Resch.

Resch said, "What is the basis of your Voigt-Kampff test, Mr. Deckard?"

"Empathic response. In a variety of social situations. Mostly having to do with animals."

"Ours is probably simpler," Resch said. The reflex-arc response taking place in the upper ganglia of the spinal column requires several microseconds more in the humanoid robot than in a human nervous system." Reaching across Inspector Garland's desk he plucked a pad of paper toward him; with a ball-point pen he drew a sketch. "We use an audio signal or a light-flash. The subject presses a button and the elapsed time is measured. We try it a number of times, of course. Elapsed time varies in both the andy and the human. But by the time ten reactions have been measured, we believe we have a reliable clue. And, as in your case with Polokov, the bone marrow test backs us up."

An interval of silence passed and then Rick said, "You can test me out. I'm ready. Of course I'd like to test you, too. If you're willing."

"Naturally," Resch said. He was, however, studying Inspector Garland. "I've said for years," Resch murmured, that the Boneli Reflex-Arc Test should be applied routinely to police personnel the higher up the chain of command the better. Haven't I, Inspector?"

"That's right you have," Garland said. "And I've always opposed it. On the grounds that it would lower department morale."

"I think now," Rick said, "you're going to have to sit still for it. In view of your lab's report on Polokov."

11

Garland said, "I guess so." He jabbed a finger at the bounty hunter Phil Resch. "But I'm warning you: you're not going to like the results of the tests."

"Do you know what they'll be?" Resch asked, with visible surprise; he did not look pleased.

"I know almost to a hair," Inspector Garland said.

"Okay." Resch nodded. "I'll go upstairs and get the Boneli gear." He strode to the door of the office, opened it, and disappeared out into the hall. "I'll be back in three or four minutes," he said to Rick. The door shut after him.

Reaching into the right-hand top drawer of his desk, Inspector Garland fumbled about, then brought forth a laser tube; he swiveled it until it pointed at Rick.

"That's not going to make any difference," Rick said. "Resch will have a postmortem run on me, the same as your lab ran on Polokov. And he'll still insist on a — what did you call it — Boneli Reflex-Arc Test on you and on himself."

The laser tube remained in its position, and then Inspector Garland said, "It was a bad day all day. Especially when I saw Officer Crams bringing you in; I had an intuition — that's why I intervened." By degrees he lowered the laser beam; he sat gripping it and then he shrugged and returned it to the desk drawer, locking the drawer and restoring the key to his pocket.

"What will tests on the three of us show?" Rick asked.

Garland said, "That damn fool Resch."

"He actually doesn't know?"

"He doesn't know; he doesn't suspect; he doesn't have the slightest idea. Otherwise he couldn't live out a life as a bounty hunter, a human occupation — hardly an android occupation." Garland gestured toward Rick's briefcase. "Those other carbons, the other suspects you're supposed to test and retire. I know them all." He paused, then said, "We all came here together on the same ship from Mars. Not Resch; he stayed behind another week, receiving the synthetic memory system." He was silent, then.

Or rather it was silent.

Rick said, "What'll he do when he finds out?"

"I don't have the foggiest idea," Garland said remotely. "It ought, from an abstract, intellectual viewpoint, to be interesting. He may kill me, kill himself; maybe you, too. He may kill everyone he can, human and android alike. I understand that such things happen, when there's been a synthetic memory system laid down. When one thinks it's human."

"So when you do that, you're taking a chance."

Garland said, "It's a chance anyway, breaking free and coming here to Earth, where we're not even considered animals. Where every worm and wood louse is considered more desirable than all of us put together." Irritably, Garland picked at his lower lip. "Your position would be better r if Phil Resch could pass the Boneli test, if it was just me. The results, that way, would be predictable; to Resch I'd just be another andy to retire as soon as possible. So you're not in a good position either, Deckard. Almost as bad, in fact, as I am. You know where I guessed wrong? I didn't know about Polokov. He must have come here earlier; obviously he came here earlier. In another group entirely — no contact with ours. He was already entrenched in the W.P.O. when I arrived. I took a chance on the lab report, which I shouldn't have. Crams, of course, took the same chance."

"Polokov was almost my finish, too," Rick said.

"Yes, there was something about him. I don't think he could have been the same brain unit type as we; he must have been souped up or tinkered with — an altered structure, unfamiliar even to us. A good one, too. Almost good enough."

"When I phoned my apartment," Rick said, "why didn't I get my wife?"

"All our vidphone lines here are trapped. They recirculate the call to other offices within the building. This is a homeostatic enterprise we're operating here, Deckard. We're a closed loop, cut off from the rest of San Francisco. We know about them but they don't know about us. Sometimes an isolated person such as yourself wanders in here or, as in your case, is brought here — for our protection." He gestured convulsively toward the office door. "Here comes eager-beaver Phil Resch back with his handy dandy portable little test. Isn't he clever? He's going to destroy his own life and mine and possibly yours."

"You androids," Rick said, "don't exactly cover for each other in times of stress."

Garland snapped, "I think you're right; it would seem we lack a specific talent you humans possess. I believe it's called empathy."

The office door opened; Phil Resch stood outlined, carrying a device which trailed wires. "Here we are," he said, closing the door after him; he seated himself, plugging the device into the electrical outlet.

Bringing out his right hand, Garland pointed at Resch. At once Resch — and also Rick Deckard — rolled from their chairs and onto the floor; at the same time, Resch . aimed a laser tube and, as he fell, fired at Garland.

The laser beam, aimed with skill, based on years of training, bifurcated Inspector Garland's head. He slumped forward and, from his hand, his miniaturized laser beam rolled across the surface of his desk. The corpse teetered on its chair and then, like a sack of eggs, it slid to one side and crashed to the floor.

"It forgot," Resch said, rising to his feet, "that this is my job. I can almost foretell what an android is going to, do. I suppose you can, too." He put his laser beam away, bent, and, with curiosity, examined the body of his quondam superior. "What did it say to you while I was gone?"

"That he — it — was an android. And you — " Rick broke off, the conduits of his brain humming, calculating, and selecting; he altered what he had started to say. " — would detect it," he finished. "In a few more minutes."

"Anything else?"

"This building is android-infested."

Resch said introspectively, "That's going to make it hard for you and me to get out of here. Nominally I have the authority to leave any time I want, of course. And to take a prisoner with me." He listened; no sound came from beyond the office. "I guess they didn't hear anything. There's evidently no bug installed here, monitoring everything as there should be." Gingerly, he nudged the body of the android with the toe of his shoe. "It certainly is remarkable, the psionic ability you develop in this business; I knew before I opened the office door that he would take a shot at me. Frankly I'm surprised he didn't kill you while I was upstairs,"

"He almost did," Rick said. "He had a big utility-model laser beam on me part of the time. He was considering it. But it was you he was worried about, not me."

"The android flees," Resch said humorlessly, "where the bounty bunter pursues. You realize, don't you, that you're going to have to double back to the opera house and get Luba Luft before anyone here has a chance to warn her as to how this came out. Warn it, I should say. Do you think of them as 'it'? "

"I did at one time," Rick said. "When my conscience occasionally bothered me about the work I had to do; I protected myself by thinking of them that way but now I no longer find it necessary. All right, I'll head directly back to the opera house. Assuming you can get me out of here."

"Suppose we sit Garland up at his desk," Resch said; he dragged the corpse of the android back up into its chair, arranging its arms and legs so that its posture appeared reasonably natural — if no one looked closely. If no one came into the office. Pressing a key on the desk intercom, Phil Resch said, "Inspector Garland has asked that no calls be put through to him for the next half hour. He's involved in work that can't be interrupted."

"Yes, Mr. Resch."

Releasing the intercom key, Phil Resch said to Rick, "I'm going to handcuff you to me during the time we're still here in the building. Once we're airborne I'll naturally let you go." He produced a pair of cuffs, slapped one onto Rick's wrist and the other around his own. "Come on; let's get it over with." He squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and pushed open the office door.

Uniformed police stood or sat on every side, conducting their routine business of the day; none of them glanced up or paid any attention as Phil Resch led Rick across the lobby to the elevator.

"What I'm afraid of," Resch said as they waited for the elevator, "is that the Garland one had a dead man's throttle warning component built into it. But — " He shrugged. "I would have expected it to go off by now; otherwise it's not much good."

The elevator arrived; several police-like nondescript men and women disemelevatored, cracked off across the lobby on their several errands. They paid no attention to Rick or Phil Resch.

"Do you think your department will take me on?" Resch asked, as the elevator doors shut, closing the two of them inside; he punched the roof button and the elevator silently rose. "After all, as of now I'm out of a job. To say the least."

Guardedly, Rick said, "I — don't see why not. Except that we already have two bounty hunters." I've got to tell him, he said to himself. It's unethical and cruel not to. Mr. Resch, you're an android, he thought to himself. You got me out of this place and here's your reward; you're everything we jointly abominate. The essence of what we're committed to destroy.

"I can't get over it," Phil Resch said. "It doesn't seem possible. For three years I've been working under the direction of androids. Why didn't I suspect — I mean, enough to do something?"

"Maybe it isn't that long. Maybe they only recently infiltrated this building."

"They've been here all the time. Garland has been my superior from the start, throughout my three years."

"According to it," Rick said, "the bunch of them came to Earth together. And that wasn't as long ago as three years; it's only been a matter of months."

"Then at one time an authentic Garland existed," Phil Resch said. "And somewhere along the way got replaced." His sharklike lean face twisted and he struggled to understand. "Or — I've been impregnated with a false memory system. Maybe I only remember Garland over the whole time. But — " His face, suffused now with growing torment, continued to twist and work spasmodically. "Only androids show up with false memory systems; it's been found ineffective in humans."

The elevator ceased rising; its doors slid back, and there, spread out ahead of them, deserted except for empty parked vehicles, lay the police station's roof field.

"Here's my car," Phil Resch said, unlocking the door of a nearby hovercar and waving Rick rapidly inside; he himself got in behind the wheel and started up the motor. In a moment they had lifted into the sky and, turning north, headed back in the direction of the War Memorial Opera House. Preoccupied, Phil Resch drove by reflex; his progressively more gloomy train of thought continued to dominate his attention. "Listen, Deckard," he said suddenly. "After we retire Luba Luft — I want you to — " His voice, husky and tormented, broke off. "You know. Give me the Boneli test or that empathy scale you have. To see about me."

"We can worry about that later," Rick said evasively "You don't want me to take it, do you?" Phil Resch glanced at him with acute comprehension. "I guess you know what the results will be; Garland must have told you something. Facts which I don't know."

Rick said, "It's going to be hard even for the two of us to take out Luba Luft; she's more than I could handle, anyhow. Let's keep our attention focused on that."

"It's not just false memory structures," Phil Resch said. "I own an animal; not a false one but the real thing. A squirrel. I love the squirrel, Deckard; every goddamn morning I feed it and change its papers — you know, clean up its cage — and then in the evening when I get off work I let it loose in my apt and it runs all over the place. It has a wheel in its cage; ever seen a squirrel running inside a wheel? It runs and runs, the wheel spins, but the squirrel stays in the same spot. Buffy seems to like it, though."

"I guess squirrels aren't too bright," Rick said.

They flew on, then, in silence.

12

At the opera house Rick Deckard and Phil Resch were informed that the rehearsal had ended. And Miss Luft had left.

"Did she say where she intended to go?" Phil Resch asked the stagehand, showing his police identification.

"Over to the museum." The stagehand studied the ID card. "She said she wanted to take in the exhibit of Edvard Munch that's there, now. It ends tomorrow."

And Luba Luft, Rick thought to himself, ends today.

As the two of them walked down the sidewalk to the museum, Phil Resch said, "What odds will you give? She's flown; we won't find her at the museum."

"Maybe," Rick said.

They arrived at the museum building, noted on which floor the Munch exhibit could be found, and ascended. Shortly, they wandered amid paintings and woodcuts. Many people had turned out for the exhibit, including a grammar school class; the shrill voice of the teacher penetrated all the rooms comprising the exhibit, and Rick thought, That's what you'd expect an andy to sound — and look — like. Instead of like Rachael Rosen and Luba Luft. And — the man beside him. Or rather the thing beside him.

"Did you ever hear of an andy having a pet of any sort?" Phil Resch asked him.

For sonic obscure reason he felt the need to be brutally honest; perhaps he had already begun preparing himself for what lay ahead. "In two cases that I know of, andys owned and cared for animals. But it's rare. From what I've been able to learn, it generally fails; the andy is unable to keep the animal alive. Animals require an environment of warmth to flourish. Except for reptiles and insects."

"Would a squirrel need that? An atmosphere of love? Because Buffy is doing fine, as sleek as an otter. I groom and comb him every other day." At an oil painting Phil Resch halted, gazed intently. The painting showed a hairless, oppressed creature with a head like an inverted pear, its hands clapped in horror to its ears, its mouth open in a vast, soundless scream. Twisted ripples of the creature's torment, echoes of its cry, flooded out into the air surrounding it; the man or woman, whichever it was, had become contained by its own howl. It had covered its ears against its own sound. The creature stood on a bridge and no one else was present; the creature screamed in isolation. Cut off by — or despite — its outcry.

"He did a woodcut of this," Rick said, reading the card tacked below the painting.

"I think," Phil Resch said, "that this is how an andy must feet." He traced in the air the convolutions, visible in the picture, of the creature's cry. "I don't feel like that, so maybe I'm not an — " He broke off, as several persons strolled up to inspect the picture.

" There's Luba Luft." Rick pointed and Phil Resch halted his somber introspection and defense; the two of them walked at a measured pace toward her, taking their time as if nothing confronted them; as always it was vital to preserve the atmosphere of the commonplace. Other humans, having no knowledge of the presence of androids among them, had to be protected at all costs — even that of losing the quarry.

Holding a printed catalogue, Luba Luft, wearing shiny tapered pants and an illuminated gold vestlike top, stood absorbed in the picture before her: a drawing of a young girl, hands clasped together, seated on the edge of a bed, an expression of bewildered wonder and new, groping awe imprinted on the face.

"Want me to buy it for you?" Rick said to Luba Luft; he stood beside her, holding laxly onto her upper arm, informing her by his loose grip that he knew he had possession of her — he did not have to strain in an effort to detain her. On the other side of her Phil Resch put his hand on her shoulder and Rick saw the bulge of the laser tube. Phil Resch did not intend to take chances, not after the near miss with Inspector Garland.

"It's not for sale." Luba Luft glanced at him idly, then violently as she recognized him; her eyes faded and the color dimmed from her face, leaving it cadaverous, as if already starting to decay. As if life had in an instant retreated to some point far inside her, leaving the body to its automatic ruin. "I thought they arrested you. Do you mean they let you go? "

"Miss Luft," he said, "this is Mr. Resch. Phil Resch, this is the quite well-known opera singer Luba Luft." To Luba he said, "The harness bull that arrested me is an android. So was his superior. Do you know — did you know — an Inspector Garland? He told me that you all came here in one ship as a group."

"The police department which you called," Phil Resch said to her, "operating out of a building on Mission, is the organizing agency by which it would appear your group keeps in touch. They even feel confident enough to hire a human bounty hunter; evidently — "

"You?" Luba Luft said. "You're not human. No more than I am: you're an android, too."

An interval of silence passed and then Phil Resch said in a low but controlled voice, "Well, we'll deal with that at the proper time." To Rick he said, "Let's take her to my car."

One of them on each side of her they prodded her in the direction of the museum elevator. Luba Luft did not come willingly, but on the other hand she did not actively resist; seemingly she had become resigned. Rick had seen that before in androids, in crucial situations. The artificial life force animating them seemed to fail if pressed too far . . . at least in some of them. But not all.

And it could flare up again furiously.

Androids, however, had as he knew an inn—ate desire to remain inconspicuous. In the museum, with so many people roaming around, Luba Luft would tend to do nothing. The real encounter — for her probably the final one — would take place in the car, where no one else could see. Alone, with appalling abruptness, she could shed her inhibitions. He prepared himself — and did not think about Phil Resch. As Resch had said, it would be dealt with at a proper time.

At the end of the corridor near the elevators, a little store-like affair had been set up; it sold prints and art books, and Luba halted there, tarrying. "Listen," she said to Rick. Some of the color had returned to her face; once more she looked — at least briefly — alive. "Buy me a reproduction of that picture I was looking at when you found me. The one of the girt sitting on the bed."

After a pause Rick said to the clerk, a heavy-jowled, middle-aged woman with netted gray hair, "Do you have a print of Munch's Puberty? "

"Only in this book of his collected work," the clerk said, lifting down a handsome glossy volume. "Twent-five dollars."

"I'll take it." He reached for his wallet.

Phil Resch said, "My departmental budget could never in a million years be stretched — "

"My own money," Rick said; he handed the woman the bills and Luba the book. "Now let's get started down," he said to her and Phil Resch.

"It's very nice of you," Luba said as they entered the elevator. "There's something very strange and touching about humans. An android would never have done that." She glanced icily at Phil Resch. "It wouldn't have occurred to him; as he said, never in a million years." She continued to gaze at Resch, now with manifold hostility and aversion. "I really don't like androids. Ever since I got here from Mars my life has consisted of imitating the human, doing what she would do, acting as if I had the thoughts and impulses a human would have. Imitating, as far as I'm concerned, a superior life form." To Phil Resch she said, "Isn't that how it's been with you, Resch? Trying to be — "

"I can't take this." Phil Resch dug into his coat, groped.

"No," Rick said; he grabbed at Phil Resch's hand; Resch retreated, eluding him. "The Boneli test," Rick said.

"It's admitted it's an android," Phil Resch said. "We don't have to wait."

"But to retire it," Rick said, "because it's needling you give me that." He struggled to pry the laser tube away from Phil Resch. The tube remained in Phil Resch's possession; Resch circled back within the cramped elevator, evading him, his attention on Luba Luft only. "Okay," Rick said. "Retire it; kill it now. Show it that it's right." He saw, then, that Resch meant to. "Wait — "

Phil Resch fired, and at the same instant Luba Luft, in a spasm of frantic hunted fear, twisted and spun away, dropping as she did so. The beam missed its mark but, as Resch lowered it, burrowed a narrow hole, silently, into her stomach. She began to scream; she lay crouched against the wall of the elevator, screaming. Like the picture, Rick thought to himself, and, with his own laser tube, killed her. Luba Luft's body fell forward, face down, in a heap. It did not even tremble.

With his laser tube, Rick systematically burned into blurred ash the book of pictures which he had just a few minutes ago bought Luba. He did the job thoroughly, saying nothing; Phil Resch watched without understanding, his face showing his perplexity.

"You could have kept the book yourself," Resch said, when it had been done. "That cost you — "

"Do you think androids have souls?" Rick interrupted.

Cocking his head on one side, Phil Resch gazed at him in even greater puzzlement.

"I could afford the book," Rick said. "I've made three thousand dollars so far today, and I'm not even half through."

"You're claiming Garland?" Phil Resch asked. "But I killed him, not you. You just lay there. And Luba, too. I got her."

"You can't collect," Rick said. "Not from your own department and not from ours. When we get to your car I'll administer the Boneli test or the Voigt-Kampff to you and then we'll see. Even though you're not on my list." His hands shaking, he opened his briefcase, rummaged among the crumpled onionskin carbons. "No, you're not here. So legally I can't claim you; to make anything I'll have to claim Luba Luft and Garland."

"You're sure I'm an android? Is that really what Garland said?"

"That's what Garland said."

"Maybe he was lying," Phil Resch said. "To split us apart. As we are now. We're nuts, letting them split us; you were absolutely right about Luba Luft — I shouldn't have let her get my goat like that. I must be overly sensitive. That would be natural for a bounty hunter, I suppose; you're probably the same way. But look; we would have had to retire Luba Luft anyhow, half an hour from now — only one half hour more. She wouldn't even have had time to look through that book you got her. And I still think you shouldn't have destroyed it; that's a waste. I can't. follow your reasoning; it isn't rational, that's why."

Rick said, "I'm getting out of this business."

"And go into what?"

"Anything. Insurance underwriting, like Garland was supposed to be doing. Or I'll emigrate. Yes." He nodded. "I'll go to Mars."

"But someone has to do this," Phil Resch pointed out.

"They can use androids. Much better if andys do it. I can't any more; I've had enough. She was a wonderful singer. The planet could have used her. This is insane."

"This is necessary. Remember: they killed humans in order to get away. And if I hadn't gotten you out of the Mission police station they would have killed you. That's what Garland wanted me for; that's why he had me come down to his office. Didn't Polokov almost kill you? Didn't Luba Luft almost? We're acting defensively; they're here on our planet — they're murderous illegal aliens masquerading as — "

"As police," Rick said. "As bounty hunters."

"Okay; give me the Boneli test. Maybe Garland lied. I think he did — false memories just aren't that good. What about my squirrel? "

"Yes, your squirrel. I forgot about your squirrel."

"If I'm an andy," Phil Resch said, "and you kill me, you can have my squirrel. Here; I'll write it out, willing it to you."

"Andys can't will anything. They can't possess anything to will."

"Then just take it," Phil Resch said.

"Maybe so," Rick said. The elevator had reached the first floor, now; its doors opened. "You stay with Luba; I'll get a patrol car here to take her to the Hall of justice. For her bone marrow test." He saw a phone booth, entered it, dropped in a coin, and, his fingers shaking, dialed. Meanwhile a group of people, who had been waiting for the elevator, gathered around Phil Resch and the body of Luba Luft.

She was really a superb singer, he said to himself as he hung up the receiver, his call completed. I don't get it; how can a talent like that be a liability to our society? But it wasn't the talent, he told himself; it was she herself. As Phil Resch is, he thought. He's a menace in exactly the same way, for the same reasons. So I can't quit now. Emerging from the phone booth he pushed his way among the people, back to Resch and the prone figure of the android girl. Someone had put a coat over her. Not Resch's.

Going up to Phil Resch — who stood off to one side vigorously smoking a small gray cigar — he said to him, "I hope to god you do test out as an android."

"You realty hate me," Phil Resch said, marveling. "All of a sudden; you didn't hate me back on Mission Street. Not while I was saving your life."

"I see a pattern. The way you killed Garland and then the way you killed Luba. You don't kill the way I do; you don't try to — Hell," he said, "I know what it is. You like to kill. All you need is a pretext. If you had a pretext you'd kill me. That's why you picked up on the possibility of Garland being an android; it made him available for being killed. I wonder what you're going to do when you fail to pass the Boneli test. Will you kill yourself? Sometimes androids do that." But the situation was rare.

"Yes, I'll take care of it," Phil Resch said. "You won't have to do anything, besides administering the test."

A patrol car arrived; two policemen hopped out, strode up, saw the crowd of people and at once cleared themselves a passage through. One of them recognized Rick and nodded. So we can go now, Rick realized. Our business here is concluded. Finally.

As he and Resch walked back down the street to the opera house, on whose roof their hovercar lay parked, Resch said, "I'll give you my laser tube now. So you won't have to worry about my reaction to the test. In terms of your own personal safety." He held out the tube and Rick accepted it.

"How'll you kill yourself without it?" Rick asked. "If you fail on the test?

"I'll hold my breath."

"Chrissake," Rick said. "It can't be done."

"There's no automatic cut-in of the vagus nerve," Phil Resch said, "in an android. As there is in a human. Weren't you taught that when they trained you? I got taught that years ago."

"But to die that way," Rick protested.

"There's no pain. What's the matter with it?"

"It's — " He gestured. Unable to find the right words.

"I don't really think I'm going to have to," Phil Resch said.

Together they ascended to the roof of the War Memorial Opera House and Phil Resch's parked hovercar.

Sliding behind the wheel and closing his door, Phil Resch said, "I would prefer it if you used the Boneli test."

"I can't. I don't know how to score it." I would have to rely on you for an interpretation of the readings, he realized. And that's out of the question.

"You'll tell me the truth, won't you?" Phil Resch asked. "If I'm an android you'll tell me?"

"Sure."

"Because I really want to know. I have to know." Phil Resch relit his cigar, shifted about on the bucket seat of the car, trying to make himself comfortable. Evidently he could not. "Did you really like that Munch picture that Luba Luft was looking at?" he asked. "I didn't care for it. Realism in art doesn't interest me; I like Picasso and — "

" Pubertydates from 1894," Rick said shortly. "Nothing but realism existed then; you have to take that into account."

"But that other one, of the man holding his ears and yelling — that wasn't representational."

Opening his briefcase, Rick fished out his test gear.

"Elaborate," Phil Resch observed, watching. "How many questions do you have to ask before you can make a determination?"

"Six or seven." He handed the adhesive pad to Phil Resch.

"Attach that to your cheek. Firmly. And this light — " He aimed it. "This stays focused on your eye. Don't move; keep your eyeball as steady as you can."

"Reflex fluctuations," Phil Resch said acutely. "But not to the physical stimulus; you're not measuring dilation, for instance. It'll be to the verbal questions; what we call a flinch reaction."

Rick said, "Do you think you can control it?"

"Not really. Eventually, maybe. But not the initial amplitude; that's outside conscious control. If it weren't—" He broke off. "Go ahead. I'm tense; excuse me if I talk too much."

"Talk all you want," Rick said. Talk all the way to the tomb, he said to himself. If you feel like it. It didn't matter to him.

"If I test out android," Phil Resch prattled, "you'll undergo renewed faith in the human race. But, since it's not going to work out that way, I suggest you begin framing an ideology which will account for— "

"Here's the first question," Rick said; the gear had now been set up and the needles of the two dials quivered. "Reaction time is a factor, so answer as rapidly as you can." From memory he selected an initial question. The test had begun.

Afterward, Rick sat in silence for a time. Then he began gathering his gear together, stuffing it back in the briefcase.

"I can tell by your face," Phil Resch said; he exhaled in absolute, weightless, almost convulsive relief. "Okay; you can give me my gun back." He reached out, his palm up, waiting.

"Evidently you were right," Rick said. "About Garland's motives. Wanting to split us up; what you said." He felt both psychologically and physically weary.

"Do you have your ideology framed?" Phil Resch asked. "That would explain me as part of the human race?"

Rick said, "There is a defect in your empathic, role-taking ability. One which we don't test for. Your feelings toward androids."

"Of course we don't test for that."

"Maybe we should." He had never thought of it before, had never felt any empathy on his own part toward the androids he killed. Always fie had assumed that throughout his psyche he experienced the android as a clever machine — as in his conscious view. And yet, in contrast to Phil Resch, a difference had manifested itself. And he felt instinctively that he was right. Empathy toward an artificial construct? he asked himself. Something that only pretends to be alive? But Luba Luft had seemed genuinely alive; it had not worn the aspect of a simulation.

"You realize," Phil Resch said quietly, "what this would do. If we included androids in our range of empathic identification, as we do animals."

"We couldn't protect ourselves."

"Absolutely. These Nexus-6 types . . . they'd roll all over us and mash us flat. You and I, all the bounty hunters — we stand between the Nexus-6 and mankind, a barrier which keeps the two distinct. Furthermore — " He ceased, noticing that Rick was once again hauling out his test gear. "I thought the test was over."

"I want to ask myself a question," Rick said. "And I want you to tell me what the needles register. Just give me the calibration; I can compute it." He plastered the adhesive disk against his cheek, arranged the beam of light until it fed directly into his eye. "Are you ready? Watch the dials. We'll exclude time lapse in this; I just want magnitude."

"Sure, Rick," Phil Resch said obligingly.

Aloud, Rick said, "I'm going down by elevator with an android I've captured. And suddenly someone kills it, without warning."

"No particular response," Phil Resch said.

"What'd the needles hit?"

"The left one 2.8. The right one 3.3"

Rick said, "A female android."

"Now they're up to 4.0 and 6. respectively."

"That's high enough," Rick said; he removed the wired adhesive disk from his cheek and shut off the beam of light. "That's an emphatically empathic response," he said. "About what a human subject shows for most questions. Except for the extreme ones, such as those dealing with human pelts used decoratively . . . the truly pathological ones."

"Meaning?"

Rick said, "I'm capable of feeling empathy for at least specific, certain androids. Not for all of them but — one or two." For Luba Luft, as an example, he said to himself. So I was wrong. There's nothing unnatural or unhuman about Phil Resch's reactions; it's me .

I wonder, he wondered, if any human has ever felt this way before about an android.

Of course, he reflected, this may never come up again in my work; it could be an anomaly, something for instance to do with my feelings for The Magic Flute . And for Luba's voice, in fact her career as a whole. Certainly this had never come up before; or at least not that he had been aware of. Not, for example, with Polokov. Nor with Garland. And, he realized, if Phil Resch had proved out android I could have killed him without feeling anything, anyhow after Luba's death.

So much for the distinction between authentic living humans and humanoid constructs. In that elevator at the museum, he said to himself, I rode down with two creatures, one human, the other android . . . and my feelings were the reverse of those intended. Of those I'm accustomed to feel — am required to feel.

"You're in a spot, Deckard," Phil Resch said; it seemed to amuse him.

Rick said, "What — should I do?"

"It's sex," Phil Resch said.

"Sex?

"Because she — it — was physically attractive. Hasn't that ever happened to you before?" Phil Resch laughed. "We were taught that it constitutes a prime problem in bounty hunting. Don't you know, Deckard, that in the colonies they have android mistresses?"

"It's illegal," Rick said, knowing the law about that.

"Sure it's illegal. But most variations in sex are illegal. But people do it anvhow."

"What about — not sex — but love?"

"Love is another name for sex."

"Like love of country," Rick said. "Love of music."

"If it's love toward a woman or an android imitation, it's sex. Wake up and face yourself, Deckard. You wanted to go to bed with a female type of android — nothing more, nothing less. I felt that way, on one occasion. When I had just started bounty hunting. Don't let it get you down; you'll heal. What's happened is that you've got your order reversed. Don't kill her — or be present when she's killed — and then feel physically attracted. Do it the other way."

Rick stared at him. "Go to bed with her first — "

" — and then kill her," Phil Resch said succinctly. His grainy, hardened smile remained.

You're a good bounty hunter, Rick realized. Your attitude proves it. But am I?

Suddenly, for the first time in his life, he had begun to wonder.

13

Like an arc of pure fire, John R. Isidore soared across the late-afternoon sky on his way home from his job. I wonder if she's still there, he said to himself. Down in that kipple-infested old apt, watching Buster Friendly on her TV set and quaking with fear every time she imagines someone coming down the hall. Including, I suppose, me.

He had already stopped off at a blackmarket grocery store. On the seat beside him a bag of such delicacies as bean curd, ripe peaches, good soft evil-smelling cheese rocked back and forth as he alternately speeded up and slowed down his car; being tense, tonight, he drove somewhat erratically. And his allegedly repaired car coughed and floundered, as it had been doing for months prior to overhaul. Rats, Isidore said to himself.

The smell of peaches and cheese eddied about the car, filling his nose with pleasure. All rarities, for which he had squandered two weeks' salary—borrowed in advance from Mr. Sloat. And, in addition, under the car seat where it could not roll and break, a bottle of Chablis wine knocked back and forth: the greatest rarity of all. He had been keeping it in a safety deposit box at the Bank of America, hanging onto it and not selling it no matter how much they offered, in case at some long, late, last moment a girl appeared. That had not happened, not until now.

The rubbish-littered, lifeless roof of his apartment building as always depressed him. Passing from his car to the elevator door he damped down his peripheral vision; he concentrated on the valuable bag and bottle which he carried, making certain that he tripped over no trash and took no ignominious pratfall to economic doom. When the elevator creakily arrived he rode it — not to his own floor — but to the lower level on which the new tenant, Pris Stratton, now lived. Presently he stood in front of her door, rapping with the edge of the wine bottle, his heart going to pieces inside his chest.

"Who's there?" Her voice, muffled by the door and yet clear. A frightened, but blade-sharp tone.

"This is J. R. Isidore speaking," he said briskly, adopting the new authority which he had so recently acquired via Mr. Sloat's vidphone. "I have a few desirable items here and I think we can put together a more than reasonable dinner."

The door, to a limited extent, opened; Pris, no lights on in the room behind her, peered out into the dim hall. "You sound different," she said. "More grown up."

"I had a few routine matters to deal with during business hours today. The usual. If you c-c-could let me in — "

"You'd talk about them." However, she held the door open wide enough for him to enter. And then, seeing what he carried, she exclaimed; her face ignited with elfin, exuberant glee. But almost at once, without warning, a lethal bitterness crossed her features, set concrete-like in place. The glee had gone.

"What is it?" he said; he carried the packages and bottle to the kitchen, set them down and hurried back.

Tonelessly, Pris said, "They're wasted on me."

"Why?"

"Oh. She shrugged, walking aimlessly away, her hands in the pockets of her heavy, rather old-fashioned skirt. "Sometime I'll tell you." She raised her eyes, then. "It was nice of you anyhow. Now I wish you'd leave. I don't feel like seeing anyone." In a vague fashion she moved toward the door to the hall; her steps dragged and she seemed depleted, her store of energy fading almost out.

"I know what's the matter with you," he said.

"Oh?" Her voice, as she reopened the hall door, dropped even further into uselessness, listless and barren.

"You don't have any friends. You're a lot worse than when I saw you this morning; it's because — "

"I have friends." Sudden authority stiffened her voice; she palpably regained vigor. "Or I had. Seven of them. That was to start with but now the bounty hunters have had time to get to work. So some of them — maybe all of them — are dead." She wandered toward the window, gazed out at the blackness and the few lights here and there. "I may be the only one of the eight of us left. So maybe you're right."

"What's a bounty hunter?"

"That's right. You people aren't supposed to know. A bounty hunter is a professional murderer who's given a list of those he's supposed to kill. He's paid a sum — a thousand dollars is the going rate, I understand — for each he gets. Usually he has a contract with a city so he draws a salary as well. But they keep that low so he'll have incentive."

"Are you sure?" Isidore asked.

"Yes." She nodded. "You mean am I sure he has incentive? Yes, he has incentive. He enjoys it."

"I think," Isidore said, "You're mistaken." Never in his life had he heard of such a thing. Buster Friendly, for instance, had never mentioned it. "It's not in accord with present-day Mercerian ethics," he pointed out. "All life is one; 'no man is an island,' as Shakespeare said in olden times."

"John Donne."

Isidore gestured in agitation. "That's worse than anything I ever heard of. Can't you call the police?"

"No."

"And they're after you? They're apt to come here and kill you?" He understood, now, why the girl acted in so secretive a fashion. "No wonder you're scared and don't want to see anybody." But he thought, It must be a delusion. She must be psychotic. With delusions of persecution. Maybe from brain damage due to the dust; maybe she's a special. "I'll get them first," he said.

"With what?" Faintly, she smiled; she showed her small, even, white teeth

"I'll get a license to carry a laser beam. It's easy to get, out here where there's hardly anybody; the police don't patrol — you're expected to watch out for yourself"

"How about when you're at work?"

"I'll take a leave of absence!"

Pris said, "That's very nice of you, J. R. Isidore. But if bounty hunters got the others, got Max Polokov and Garland and Luba and Hasking and Roy Baty — " She broke off. "Roy and Irmgard Baty. If they're dead then it really doesn't matter. They're my best friends. Why the hell don't I hear from them, I wonder?" She cursed, angrily.

Making his way into the kitchen he got down dusty, long unused plates and bowls and glasses; he began washing them in the sink, running the rusty hot water until it cleared — at last. Presently Pris appeared, seated herself at the table. He uncorked the bottle of Chablis, divided the peaches and the cheese and the bean curd.

"What's that white stuff? Not the cheese." She pointed.

"Made from soy bean whey. I wish I had some — " He broke off, flushing. "It used to be eaten with beef gravy."

"An android," Pris murmured. "That's the sort of slip an android makes. That's what gives it away." She came over, stood beside him, and then to his stunned surprise put her arm around his waist and for an instant pressed against him.

"I'll try a slice of peach," she said, and gingerly picked out a slippery pink-orange furry slice with her long fingers. And then, as she ate the slice of peach, she began to cry. Cold tears descended her cheeks, splashed on the bosom of her dress. He did not know what to do, so he continued dividing the food. "Goddamn it," she said, furiously. "Well — " She moved away from him, paced slowly, with measured steps, about the room. " — see, we lived on Mars. That's how come I know androids." Her voice shook but she managed to continue; obviously it meant a great deal to her to have someone to talk to.

"And the only people on Earth that you know," Isidore said, "are your fellow ex-emigrants."

"We knew each other before the trip. A settlement near New New York. Roy Baty and Irmgard ran a drugstore; he was a pharmacist and she handled the beauty aids, the creams and ointments; on Mars they use a lot of skin conditioners. I — " She hesitated. "I got various drugs from Roy — I needed them at first because — well, anyhow, it's an awful place. This " — she swept in the room, the apartment, in one violent gesture — " this is nothing. You think I'm suffering because I'm lonely. Hell, all Mars is lonely. Much worse than this."

"Don't the androids keep you company? I heard a commercial on — " Seating himself he ate, and presently she too picked up the glass of wine; she sipped expressionlessly. "I understood that the androids helped."

"The androids," she said, "are lonely, too."

"Do you like the wine?"

She set down her glass. "It's fine."

"It's the only bottle I've seen in three years."

"We came back," Pris said, "because nobody should have to live there. It wasn't conceived for habitation, at least not within the last billion years. It's so old . You feel it in the stones, the terrible old age. Anyhow, at first I got drugs from Roy; I lived for that new synthetic pain-killer, that silenizine. And then I met Horst Hartman, who at that time ran a stamp store, rare postage stamps; there's so much time on your hands that you've got to have a hobby, something you can pore over endlessly. And Horst got me interested in pre-colonial fiction."

"You mean old books?"

"Stories written before space travel but about space travel."

"How could there have been stories about space travel before — "

"The writers," Pris said, "made it up."

"Based on what?"

"On imagination. A lot of times they turned out wrong. For example they wrote about Venus being a jungle paradise with huge monsters and women in breastplates that glistened." She eyed him. "Does that interest you? Big women with long braided blond hair and gleaming breastplates the size of melons?"

"No," he said.

"Irmgard is blond," Pris said. "But small. Anyhow, there's a fortune to be made in smuggling pre-colonial fiction, the old magazines and books and films, to Mars. Nothing is as exciting. To read about cities and huge industrial enterprises, and really successful colonization. You can imagine what it might have been like. What Mars ought to be like. Canals."

"Canals?" Dimly, he remembered reading about that; in the olden days they had believed in canals on Mars.

"Crisscrossing the planet," Pris said. "And beings from other stars. With infinite wisdom. And stories about Earth, set in our time and even later. Where there's no radioactive dust."

"I would think," Isidore said, "it would make you feel worse."

"It doesn't," Pris said curtly.

"Did you bring any of that pre-colonial reading material back with you? " It occurred to him that he ought to try some.

"It's worthless, here, because here on Earth the craze never caught on. Anyhow there's plenty here, in the libraries; that's where we get all of ours — stolen from libraries here on Earth and shot by autorocket to Mars. You're out at night humbling across the open space, and all of a sudden you see a flare, and there's a rocket, cracked open, with old pre-colonial fiction magazines spilling out everywhere. A fortune. But of course you read them before you sell them." She warmed to her topic. "Of all — "

A knock sounded on the hall door.

Ashen, Pris whispered, "I can't go. Don't make any noise; just sit." She strained, listening. "I wonder if the door's locked," she said almost inaudibly. "God, I hope so." Her eyes, wild and powerful, fixed themselves beseechingly on him, as if praying to him to make it true.

A far-off voice from the hall called, "Pris, are you in there?" A man's voice. "It's Roy and Irmgard. We got your card."

Rising and going into the bedroom, Pris reappeared carrying a pen and scrap of paper; she reseated herself, scratched out a hasty message.

YOU GO TO THE DOOR.

Isidore, nervously, took the pen from her and wrote:

AND SAY WHAT?

With anger, Pris scratched out:

SEE IF IT'S REALLY THEM.

Getting up, he walked glumly into the living room. How would I know if it was them? he inquired of himself. He opened the door.

Two people stood in the dim hall, a small woman, lovely in the manner of Greta Garbo, with blue eyes and yellow-blond hair; the man larger, with intelligent eyes but flat, Mongolian features which gave him a brutal look. The woman wore a fashionable wrap, high shiny boots, and tapered pants; the man lounged in a rumpled shirt and stained trousers, giving an air of almost deliberate vulgarity. He smiled at Isidore but his bright, small eyes remained oblique.

"We're looking — " the small blond woman began, but then she saw past Isidore; her face dissolved in rapture and she whisked past him, calling. "Pris! How are you?" Isidore turned. The two women were embracing. He stepped aside, and Roy Baty entered, somber and large, smiling his crooked, tuneless smile.