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12 At the opera house Rick Deckard and Phil Resch were informed that the
rehearsal had ended. And Miss Luft had left. Afterward, Rick sat in silence for a time. Then he began gathering his gear
together, stuffing it back in the briefcase. 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 kippleinfested 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. 14 'Can we talk?' Roy said, indicating Isidore. He led Pris upstairs to his own apartment, dark and empty and stuffy and
lukewarm as it was; carrying her possessions into the bedroom, he at once turned
on the heater, lights, and the TV to its sole channel.
'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 some 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.'
Edvard Munch
exhibition
'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 feel.' 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 sombre introspection and defence; 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 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 band 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 colour 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 bunter; 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.'
Failing of androids in hopeless
situations
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 try to keep
inconspicious
Androids, however, had as he knew
an innate 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 storelike affair had been set up; it sold prints and art
books, and Luba halted there, tarrying. 'Listen,' she said to Rick. Some of the
colour 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 girl sitting on the bed.'
After a pause Rick said to the
clerk, a heavy-jowled, middleaged woman with netted grey 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. 'Twenty-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 lifeform.' 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 e 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-'
Killing of Luba Luft
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 top 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 squirel?'
'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 a coin, and, his fingers shaking, dialled. 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 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 he 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 grey cigar -
he said to him, 'I hope to god you do test out as an android.'
'You really
hate me,' Phil Resch said, marvelling. '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 teat?'
'I'll hold my
breath.';
'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
Bond 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 rea ly 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 -'
'"Puberty"
dates 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 focussed 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.
'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 emphatic, 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 he 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.'
Ahsolutely. 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 disc
against us 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 l've captured. And suddenly someone
kills it, without framing.'
'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 6.0
respectively.'
'That's high enough,' Rick said; he removed the wired adhesive
disc 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, that 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 anyhow.'
'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.'
'Go to bed with her
first-'
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.
Planing the
dinner
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,fill
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 on to 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 be 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-fashoned 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 vigour. '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.'
'I will protect
you.'
'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 licence 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 of, flushing. 'It used to be eaten
with beef gravy.'
tales from
Mars
'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 ointments; on Mars they use a lot of
skin conditions. 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 expressionessly. '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.'
Science Fiction
Books
'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 blonde hair and gleaming breastplates the size
of melons?'
'No,' he said.
'Irmgard is blonde,' 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-bumbling 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 a 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
blonde 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 blonde
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, sombre and large,
smiling his crooked, tuneless smile.
Pris, vibrant with bliss,
said, 'It's okay up to a point.' To Isidore she said, 'Excuse us.' She led the
Batys off to one side and muttered at them; then the three of them returned to
confront J.R. Isidore, who felt uncomfortable and out of place. 'This is Mr
Isidore,' Pris said. 'He's taking care of me.' The words came out tinged with an
almost malicious sarcasm; Isidore blinked. 'See? He brought me some natural
food.'
'Food,' Irmgard Baty echoed, and trotted lithely into the kitchen to
see. 'Peaches,' she said, immediately picking up a bowl and spoon; smiling at
Isidore she ate with brisk little animal bites. Her smile, different from
Pris's, provided simple warmth; it had no veiled overtones.
Going after her -
he felt attracted to her - Isidore said, 'You're from Mars.'
Defensive
plans;
'Yes, we gave up.' Her voiced bobbed, as, with
birdish acumen, her blue eyes sparkled at him. 'What an awful building you live
in. Nobody else lives here, do they? We didn't see any other lights.'
'I live
upstairs,' Isidore said.
'Oh, I thought you and Pris were maybe living
together.' Irmgard Baty did not sound disapproving; she meant it, obviously, as
merely a statement.
Dourly - but still smiling his smile - Roy Baty said,
'Well, they got Polokov.'
The joy which had appeared on Pris's face at seeing
her friends at once melted away. 'Who else?'
'They got Garland,' Roy Baty
said. 'They got Anders and Gitchel and then just a little earlier today they got
Luba.' He delivered the news as if, perversely, it pleased him to be telling
this. As if he derived pleasure from Pris's shock. 'I didn't think they'd get
Luba; remember I kept saying that during the trip?'
'So that leaves -' Pris
said.
'The three of us,' Irmgard said with apprehensive urgency.
'That's
why we're here.' Roy Baty's voice boomed out with new, unexpected warmth; the
worse the situation the more he seemed to enjoy it. Isidore could not fathom him
in the slightest.
'Oh god,' Pris said, stricken.
'Well, they had this
investigator, this bounty hunter.' Irmgard said in agitation, 'named Dave
Holden.' Her lips dripped venom at the name. 'And then Polokov almost got
him.'
'Almost got him,' Roy echoed, his smile now immense.
'So he's in
this hospital, this Holden,' Irmgard continued, 'And evidently they gave his
list to another bounty hunter, and Polokov almost got him, too. But it wound up
with him retiring Polokov. And then he went after Luba; we know that because she
managed to get hold of Garland and he sent out someone to capture the bounty
hunter and take him to the Mission Street building. See, Luba called us after
Garland's agent picked up the bounty hunter. She was sure it would be okay; she
was sure that Garland would kill him.' She added, 'But evidently something went
wrong on Mission. We don't know what. Maybe we never will.'
Pris asked, 'Does
this bounty hunter have our names?'
'Oh yes, dear, I suppose he does,'
Irmgard said. 'But he doesn't know where we are. Roy and I aren't going back to
our apartment; we have as much stuff in our car as we could cram in, and we've
decided to take one of these abandoned apartments in this ratty old
building.'
'Is that wise?' Isidore spoke up, summoning courage. 'T-t-to all
be in one place?'
'Well, they got everybody else,' Irmgard said,
matter-of-factly; she, too, like her husband, seemed strangely resigned, despite
her superficial agitation. All of them, Isidore thought; they're all strange. He
sensed it without being able to finger It. As if a peculiar and malign
abstractness pervaded their mental processes. Except, perhaps, for Pris;
certainly she was radically frightened. Pris seemed almost right, almost
natural. But -
'Why don't you move in with him?' Roy said to Pris, indicating
Isidore. 'He could give you a certain amount of protection.'
'A chickenhead?'
Pris said. 'I'm not going to live with a chickenhead.' Her nostrils
flared.
Irmgard said rapidly, 'I think you're foolish to be a snob at a time
like this. Bounty hunters move fast; he may try to tie it up this evening. There
may be a bonus in it for him if he got it done by-'
'Keerist, close the hall
door,' Roy said, going over to it; he slammed it with one blow of his hand,
thereupon summarily locking it. 'I think you should move in with Isidore, Pris,
and I think Irm and I should be here in the same building; that way we can help
each other. I've got some electronic components in my car, junk I ripped off the
ship. I'll install a two way bug so Pris you can hear us and we can hear you,
and I'll rig up an alarm system that any of the four of us can set off. It's
obvious that the synthetic identities didn't work out, even Garland's. Of
course, Garland put his head in the noose by bringing the bounty hunter to the
Mission Street building; that was a mistake. And Polokov, instead of staying as
far away as possible from the hunter, chose to approach him. We won't do that;
we'll stay put.' He did not sound worried in the slightest; the situation seemed
to rouse him to crackling near-manic energy. 'I think -' He sucked in his breath
noisily, holding the attention of everyone else in the room, including Isidore.
'I think that there's a reason why the three of us are still alive. I think if
he had any clue as to where we are he'd have shown up here by now. The whole
idea in bounty hunting is to work as fast as hell. That's where the profit
comes.'
'And if he waits,' Irmgard said in agreement, 'we slip away, like
we've done. I bet Roy is right; I bet he has our names but no location. Poor
Luba; stuck in the War Memorial Opera House, right out in the open. No
difficulty finding her.'
'Well,' Roy said stiltedly, 'she wanted it that way;
she believed she'd be safer as a public figure.'
'You told her otherwise,'
Irmgard said.
'Yes,' Roy agreed, 'I told her, and I told Polokov not to try
to pass himself off as a W.P.O. man. And I told Garland that one of his own
bounty hunters would get him, which is very possibly, just conceivably, exactly
what did happen.' He rocked back and forth on his heavy heels, his face wise
with profundity.
Isidore spoke up. 'I-I-I gather from l-l-listening to Mr
Baty that he's your n-n-natural leader.'
'Oh yes, Roy's a leader,' Irmgard
said.
Pris said, 'He organized our - trip. From Mars to here.'
Isisdores imagine of a blade
runner
'Then,' Isidore said, 'you better do what
h-h-he suggests.' His voice broke with hope and tension. 'I think it would be
t-t-terrific, Pris, if you I-I-lived with me. I'll stay home a couple of days
from my job - I have a vacation coming. To make sure you're okay,' And maybe
Milt, who was very inventive, could design a weapon for him to use. Something
imaginative, which would slay bounty hunters ... whatever they were. He had an
indistinct, glimpsed-darkly impression: of something merciless that carried a
printed list and a gun, that moved machine-like through the flat, bureaucratic
job of killing. A thing without emotions, or even a face; a thing that if killed
got replaced immediately by another resembling it. And so on, until everyone
real and alive had been shot.
Incredible, he thought, that the police can't
do anything. I can't believe that. These people must have done something.
Perhaps they emigrated back to Earth illegally. We're told - the TV tells us -
to report any landing of a ship outside the approved pads. The police must be
watching for this.
But even so, no one got killed deliberately any more. It
ran contrary to Mercerism..
'The chickenhead,' Pris said, 'likes
me.'
'Don't call him that, Pris,' Irmgard said; she gave Isidore a look of
compassion. 'Think what he could call you.'
Pris said nothing. Her expression
became enigmatic.
'I'll go start rigging up the bug,' Roy said. 'Irmgard and
I'll stay in this apartment; Pris you go with - Mr Isidore.' He started toward
the door, striding with amazing speed for a man so heavy. In a blur he
disappeared out the door, which banged back as he flung it open. Isidore, then,
had a momentary, strange hallucination; he saw briefly a frame of metal, a
platform of pullies and circuits and batteries and turrets and gears and then
the slovenly shape of Roy Baty faded back into view. Isidore felt a laugh rise
up inside him; he nervously choked it off. And felt bewildered.
'A man,' Pris
said distantly, 'of action. Too bad he's so poor with his hands, doing
mechanical things.'
'If we get saved,' Irmgard said in a scolding, severe
tone, as if chiding her, 'it'll be because of Roy.'
'But is it worth it,'
Pris said, mostly to herself. She shrugged, then nodded to Isidore. 'Okay, J.R.
I'll move in with you and you can protect me.'
'A-a-all of you,' Isidore said
immediately.
Solemnly, in a formal little voice, Irmgard Baty said to him, 'I
want you to know we appreciate it very much, Mr Isidore. You're the first friend
I think any of us have found here on Earth. It's very nice of you and maybe
sometime we can repay you.' She glided over to pat him on the arm.
'Do you
have any pre-colonial fiction I could read?' he asked her.
'Pardon?' Irmgard
Baty glanced inquiringly at Pris.
'Those old magazines,' Pris said; she had
gathered a few things together to take with her, and Isidore lifted the bundle
from her arms, feeling the glow that comes only from satisfaction at a goal
achieved. 'No, J.R. We didn't bring any back with us, for reasons I
explained.'
'I'll g-g-go to a library tomorrow,' he said, going out into the
hall. 'And g-g-get you and me too some to read, so you'll have something to do
besides just waiting.'
'I like this,' Pris
said, but in the same detached and remote tone as before. She meandered about,
hands thrust in her skirt pockets; on her face a sour expretsion, almost
righteous in the degree of its displeasure, appeared. In contrast to her stated
reaction.
'What's the matter?' he asked as he laid her possessions out on the
couch.
'Nothing.' She halted at the picture window, drew the drapes back, and
gazed morosely out.
'If you think they're looking for you -' he
began.
'It's a dream,' Pris said. 'Induced by drugs that Roy gave
me.'
'P-pardon?'
'You really think that bounty hunters exist?'
'Mr Baty
said they killed your friends.'
'Roy Baty is as crazy as I am,' Pris said.
'Our trip was between a mental hospital on the East Coast and here. We're all
schizophrenic, with defective emotional lives - flattening of affect, it's
called. And we have group hallucinations.'
'I didn't think it was true,' he
said full of relief.
'Why didn't you?' She swivelled to stare intently at
him; her scrutiny was so strict that he felt himself flushing.
'B-b-because
things like that don't happen. The g-g-goverment never kills anyone, for any
crime. And Mercerism -'
'But you see,' Pris said, 'if you're not human, then
it's all different.'
That's not true. Even animals - even eels and gophers
and snakes and spiders - are sacred.'
Pris, stiff regarding him fixedly,
said, 'So it can't be, can it? As you say, even animals are protected by law.
All life. Everything organic that wriggles or squirms or burrows or flies or
swarms or lays eggs or -' She broke off, becuse Roy Baty had appeared, abruptly
throwing the door of the apartment open and entering; a trail of wire rustled
after him.
'Insects,' he said, showing no embarrassment at overhearing them,
'are especially sacrosanct.' Lifting a picture from the wall of the living-room
he attached a small electronic device to the nail, stepped back, viewed it, then
replaced the picture. 'Now the alarm.' He gathered up the trailing wire, which
led to a complex assembly. Smiling his discordant smile, he showed the assembly
to Pris and John Isidore. 'The alarm. These wires go under the carpet; they're
antennae. It picks up the presence of a -' He hesitated. 'A mentational entity,'
he said obscurely, 'which isn't one of us four.'
'So it rings,' Pris said,
'and then what? He'll have a gun. We can't fall on him and bite him to
death.'
'This assembly,' Roy continued, 'has a Penfield unit built into it.
When the alarm has been triggered it radiates a mood of panic to the - intruder.
Unless he acts very fast, which he may. Enormous panic; I have the gain turned
all the way up. No human being can remain in the vicinity more than a matter of
seconds. That's the nature of panic: it leads to random circus-motions,
purposeless flight, and muscle - and neural spasms.' He concluded, 'Which will
give us an opportunity to get him. Possibly. Depending on how good he
is.'
Isidore said, 'Won't the alarm affect us?'
'That's right,' Pris said
to Roy Baty. 'It'll affect Isidore.'
'Well, so what,' Roy said. And resumed
his task of installation. 'So they both go racing out of here panic-stricken.
It'll still give us time to react. And they won't kill Isidore; he's not on
their list. That's why he's usable as a cover.'
Pris said brusquely, 'You
can't do any better, Roy?'
'No,' he answered, 'I can't.'
'I'll be able to
g-g-get a weapon tomorrow,' Isidore spoke up.
'You're sure Isidore's presence
here won't set off the alarm?' Pris said. 'After all, he's - you know.'
'I've
compensated for his cephalic emanations,' Roy explained. 'Their sum won't trip
anything; it'll take an additional human. Person.' Scowling, he glanced at
Isidore, aware of what he had said.
'You're androids,' Isidore said. But he
didn't care; it made no difference to him. 'I see why they want to kill you,' he
said. 'Actually you're not alive.' Everything made sense to him, now. The bounty
hunter, the killing of their friends, the trip to Earth, all these
precautions.
'When I used the word "human",' Roy Baty said to Pris, 'I used
the wrong word.'
'That's right, Mr Baty,' Isidore said. 'But what does it
matter to me? I mean, I'm a special; they don't treat me very well either, like
for instance I can't emigrate.' He found himself yabbering away like a folletto.
'You can't come here; I can't -' He calmed himself.
After a pause Roy Baty
said laconically, 'You wouldn't enjoy Mars. You're missing nothing.'
'I
wondered how long it would be,' Pris said to Isidore, 'before you realized. We
are different, aren't we?'
'That's what probably tripped up Garland and Max
Polokov,' Roy Baty said. 'They were so goddamn sure they could pass. Luba,
too.'
'You're intellectual,' lsidore said; he felt excited again at having
understood. Excitement and pride. 'You think abstractly, and you don't -' He
gesticulated, his words tangling up with one another. As usual. 'I wish I had an
I like you have; then I could pass the test, I wouldn't be a chickenhead. I
think you're very superior; I could learn a lot from you.'
After an interval
Roy Baty said 'I'll finish wiring up the alarm.' He resumed work.
'He doesn't
understand yet,' Pris said in a sharp, brittle stentorian voice, 'how we got off
Mars. What we did there.'
'What we couldn't help doing,' Roy Baty
grunted.
At the open door to the hall Irmgard Baty had been standing they
noticed her as she spoke up. 'I don't think we have to worry about Mr Isidore,'
she said earnestly; she walked swiftly toward him, looked up into his face.
'They don't treat him very well either, as he said. And what we did on Mars he
isn't interested in; he knows us and he likes us and an emotional acceptance
like that - it's everything to him. It's hard for us to grasp that, but it's
true.' To Isidore she said, standing very close to him once again and peering up
at him, 'You could a lot of money by turning us in; do you realize
that?'Twisting she said to her husband, 'See, he realizes that but still he
wouldn't say anything.'
'You're a great man, Isidore,' Pris said. 'You're a
credit to your race.'
If he was an android,' Roy said heartily, 'he'd turn us
in about ten tomorrow morning. He'd take off for his job and that would be it.
I'm overwhelmed with admiration.' His tone could not be deciphered; at least
Isidore could not crack it. And we imagined this would be a friendless world, a
planet of hostile faces, all turned against us.' He barked out a laugh.
'I'm
not at all worried,' Irmgard said.
'You ought to be scared to the soles of
your feet,' Roy said.
'Let's vote,' Pris said. 'As we did on the ship, when
we had a disagreement.'
'Well,' Irmgard said, 'I won't say anything more. But
if we turn this down I don't think we'll find any other human being who'll take
us in and help us? Mr Isidore is -' She searched for word.
'Special,' Pris
said.
NEXT