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15

the vote
Solemnly, and with ceremony, the vote was taken.
'We stay here,' Irmgard said, with firmness. 'In this apartment, in this building.'
Roy Baty said, 'I vote we kill Mr Isidore and hide somewhere else.' He and his wife - and John Isidore - now turned tautly toward Pris.
In a low voice Pris said, 'I vote we make our stand here.' She added, more loudly, 'I think J.R.'s value to us outweighs his danger, that of his knowing. Obviously we can't live among humans without being discovered; that's what killed Polokov and Garland and Luba and Anders. That's what killed all of them.'
'Maybe they did just what we're doing,' Roy Baty said.
'Confided in, trusted, one given human being who they believed was different. As you said, special.'
'We don't know that,' Irmgard said. 'That's only a conjecture. I think they, they -' She gestured. 'Walked around. Sang from a stage like Luba. We trust - I'll tell you what we trust that fouls us up, Roy; it's our goddamn superior intelligence!' She glared at her husband, her small, high breasts rising and falling rapidly. 'We're so smart - Roy, you're doing it right now; goddamn you, you're doing it now!'
Pris said, 'I think Irm's right.'
'So we hang our lives on a substandard, blighted -' Roy began, then gave up. 'I'm tired,' he said simply. 'It's been a long trip, Isidore. But not very long here. Unfortunately.'
'I hope,' Isidore said happily, 'I can help make your stay here on Earth pleasant.' He felt sure he could. It seemed to him a cinch, the culmination of his whole life - and of the new authority which he bad manifested on the vidphone today at work.

Buying animals
As soon as he officially quit work that evening, Rick Deckard flew across town to animal row: the several blocks of big-time animal dealers with their huge glass windows and lurid signs. The new and horribly unique depression which had floored him earlier in the day had not left. This, his activity here with animals and animal dealers, seemed the only weak spot in the shroud of depression, a flaw by which he might be able to grab it, and exorcise it. In the past, anyhow, the sight of animals, the scent of money deals with expensive had done much for him. Maybe it would accomplish as now.
Yes, sir,' a nattily dressed new animal salesman said to him chattily as he stood gaping with a sort of glazed, meek need at the displays. 'See anything you like?'
Rick said, 'I see a lot I like. It's the cost that bothers me.'
'You tell us the deal you want to make,' the salesman said. 'What you want to take home with you and how you want to pay for it. We'll take the package to our sales manager and and get his big okay.'
'I've got three thou cash.' The department, at the end of the day had paid him his bounty. 'How much,' he asked, 'is that family of rabbits over there?'
'Sir, if you have a down payment of three thou, I can make you owner of something a lot better than a pair of rabbits. What about a goat?'
'I haven't thought much about goats,' Rick said.
'May I ask if this represents a new price bracket for you?'
'Well, I don't usually carry around three thou,' Rick conceded.
'I thought as much, sir, when you mentioned rabbits. The thing about rabbits, sir, is that everybody has one. I'd like to see you step up to the goat-class where I feel you belong. Frankly you look more like a goat man to me.'
'What are the advantages to goats?'
'What are the advantages to goats?'
The animal salesman said, 'The distinct advantage of a goat is that it can be taught to butt anyone who tries to steal it.'
'Not if they shoot it with a hypno-dart and descend by rope ladder from a hovering hovercar,' Rick said.
The salesman, undaunted, continued, 'A goat is loyal. And it has a free, natural soul which no cage can chain up. And there is one exceptional additional feature about goats, one which you may not be aware of. Often times when you invest in an animal and take it home you find, some morning, that it's eaten something radioactive and died. A goat isn't bothered by contaminated quasi-foodstuffs; it can eat eclectically, even items that would fell a cow or a horse or most especially a cat. As a long term investment we feel that the goat - especially the female - offers unbeatable advantages to the serious animal-owner.'
'Is this goat a female?' He had noticed a big black goat standing squarely in the centre of its cage; he moved that way and the salesman accompanied him. The goat, it seemed to Rick, was beautiful.
'Yes, this goat is a female. A black Nubian goat, very large, as you can see. This is a superb contender in this year's market, sir. And we're offering her at an attractive, unusually low, low - price.'
Getting out his creased Sidney's, Rick looked up the listings on goats, black Nubian.
'Will this be a cash deal?' the salesman asked. 'Or are you trading in a used animal?'
'All cash,' Rink said.
On a slip of paper the salesman scribbled a price and then briefly, almost furtively, showed it to Rick.
'Too much,' Rick said. He took the slip of paper and wrote down a more modest figure.
'We couldn't let a goat go for that,' the salesman protested. He wrote another figure. 'This goat is less than a year old: she has a very long life expectancy.' He showed the figure to Rick.
'It's a deal,' Rick said.
He signed the time-payment contract, paid over his three thousand dollars - his entire bounty money - as down payment, and shortly found himself standing by his hovercar, rather dazed, as employees of the animal dealer loaded the crate of goat into the car. I own an animal now, he said to himself. A living animal, not electric. For the second time in my life.
The expense, the contractual indebtedness, appalled him; he found himself shaking. But I had to do it, he said to himself. The experience with Phil Resch - I have to get my confidence, my faith in myself and my abilities, back. Or I won't keep my job.
His hands numb he guided the hovercar up into the sky and headed for his apartment and Iran. She'll be angry, he said to himself. Because it'll worry her, the responsibility. And since she's home all day a lot of the maintenance will fall to her. Again he felt dismal.
When he had landed on the roof of his building he sat for a time, weaving together in his mind a story thick with simlitudine. My job requires it, he thought, scraping bottom. Prestige. We couldn't go on with the electric sheep any longer; it sapped my morale. Maybe I can tell her that, he decided.
Climbing from the car he manoeuvred the goat cage from the beak seat, with wheezing effort managed to set it down on the roof. The goat, which had slid about during the transfer, regarded him with bright-eyed perspicacity, but made no sound.
He descended to his floor, followed a familiar path down the hall to his own door.
'Hi,' Iran greeted him, busy in the kitchen with dinner. 'Why so late tonight?'
'Come up to the roof,' he said. 'I want to show you something.'
'You bought an animal.' She removed her apron, smoothed back her hair reflexively, and followed him out of the apartment; they progressed down the hall with huge, eager strides. 'You shouldn't have gotten it without me,' Iran gasped. 'I have a right to participate in the decision, the most important acquisition we'll ever -'
'I wanted it to be a surprise,' he said.
'You made some bounty money today,' Iran said, accussingly.
Rick said, 'Yes. I retired three andys.' He entered the elevator and together they moved nearer to god. 'I had to buy this,' he said. 'Something went wrong, today; something about retiring them. It wouldn't have been possible for me to go on without getting an animal.' The elevator had reached the roof; he led his wife out into the evening darkness, to the cage; switching on the spotlights - maintained for the use of all building residents - he pointed to the goat, silently. Waiting fon her reaction.
'Oh my god,' Iran said softly. She walked to the cage, peered in, then she circled around it, viewing the goat from every angle. 'Is it real,' she asked. 'It's not false?'
'Absolutely real,' he said. 'Unless they swindled me.' But that rarely happened; the fine for counterfeiting would be enormous: two and a half times the full market value of the genuine animal. 'No, they didn't swindle me.'
'It's a goat,' Iran said. 'A black Nubian goat.'
'Female,' Rick said. 'So maybe later on we can mate her. And we'll get milk out of which we can make cheese.'
'Can we let her out? Put her where the sheep is?'
'She ought to be tethered.' he said. 'For a few days at least.'
Iran said in an odd little voice, '"My life is love and pleasure." An old, old song by Josef Strauss. Remember? When we first met.' She put her hand gently on his shoulder, leaned toward him, and kissed him. 'Much love. And very much pleasure.'
'Thanks,' he said, and hugged her.
'Let's run downstairs and give thanks to Mercer. Then we can come up here again and right away name her; she needs a name. And maybe you can find some rope to tether her.' She started off.
Standing by his horse Judy, grooming and currying her, their neighbour Bill Harbour called to them, 'Hy, that's a nice-looking goat you have, Deckards. Congratulations. Evening, Mrs Deckard. Maybe you'll have kids; I'll maybe trade you my colt for a couple of kids.'
'Thanks,' Rick said. He followed after Iran. in the direction of the elevator. 'Does this cure your depression?' he asked her. 'It cures mine.'
Iran said, 'It certainly does cure my depression. Now we can admit to everybody that the sheep's false.'
'No need to do that,' he said cautiously.
'But we can,' Iran persisted. 'See, now we have nothing to hide; what we've always wanted has come true. It's a dream!' Once more she stood on tiptoe, leaning and nimbly kissing him; her breath, eager and erratic, tickled his neck. She reached, then, to stab at the elevator button.
Something warned him. Something made him say, 'Let's not go down to the apartment yet. Let's stay up here with the goat. Let's just sit and look at her and maybe feed the goat something. They gave me a bag of oats to start us out, And we can read the manual on goat maintenance; they included that, too, at no extra charge. We can call her Euphemia.' The elevator, however, had come and already Iran was trotting inside. 'Iran, wait,' he said.
'It would be immoral not to fuse with Mercer in gratitude,' Iran said. 'I had hold of the handles of the box today and it overcame my depression a little - just a little, not like this. I got hit by a rock, here.' She held up her wrist; he made out a small dark bruise. 'And I remember thinking much better we are, how much better off, when we're with Mercer. Despite the pain. Physical pain but spiritually together; I felt everyone else, all over the world, all who had fused at the same time.' She held the elevator door from sliding shut. 'Get in, Rick. This'll be just for a moment. You hardly ever undergo fusion; I want you to transmit the mood you're in now to everyone else; you owe it to them. It would be immoral to keep it for ourselves.'
She was, of course, right. So he entered the elevator and again descended.
In their living-room, at the empathy box, Iran swiftly snapped the switch, her face animated with growing gladness; it lit her up like a rising new crescent of moon. 'I want everyone to know,' she told him. 'Once that happened to me; I fused and picked up someone who had just acquired an animal. And then one day -' Her features momentarily darkend; The pleasure fled. 'One day I found myself receiving someone whose animal had died, But others of us shared our different joys with them - I didn't have any, as you might know - and that cheered the person up. We might even reach a potential suicide; what we have, what we're feeling, might -'
'They'll have our joy,' Rick said, 'but we'll lose. We'll exchange what we feel for what they feel. Our joy will be lost.'
The screen of the empathy box now showed rushing streams of bright formless colour; taking a breath his wife hung on tightly to the two handles. 'We won't really lose what we feel, not if we keep it clearly in mind. You never really have gotten the hang of fusion, have you, Rick?'
'Guess not,' he said. But now he had begun to sense, for the first time, the value that people such as Iran obtained from Mercerism. Possibly his experience with the bounty hunter Phil Resch had altered some minute synapsis in him, had closed one neurological switch and opened another. And this perhaps had started a chain reaction. 'Iran,' he said urgently; he drew her away from the empathy box. 'Listen; I want to talk about what happened to me today.' He led her over to the couch, sat her down facing him. 'I met another bounty hunter,' he said. 'One I never saw before. A predatory one who seemed to like to destroy them. For the first time, after being with him, I looked at them differently. - I mean, in my own way I had been viewing them as he did.'
Rick said, 'I took a test, one question, and verified it; I've begun to empathize with androids, and look what that means. You said it this morning yourself. "Those poor andys." So you know what I'm talking about. That's why I bought the goat. I never felt like that before. Maybe it could be a depression, like you get. I can understand now how you suffer when you're depressed; I always thought you liked it and I thought you could have snapped yourself out any time, if not alone then by means of the mood organ. But when you get that depressed you don't care. Apathy, because you've lost a sense of worth, it doesn't matter whether you feel better because if you have no worth -'
'What about your job?' Her tone jabbed at him; he blinked. 'Your job,' Iran repeated. 'What are the monthly payments on the goat?' She held out her hand; reflexively he got out the contract which he had signed, passed it to her. 'That much,' she said in a thin voice. 'The interest: good god - the interest alone. And you did this because you were depressed. Not as a surprise for me, as you originally said.' She handed the contract back to him. 'Well, it doesn't matter. I'm still glad you got the goat; I love the goat. But it's such an economic burden.' She looked grey.
Rick said, 'I can get switched to some other desk. The departments does ten or eleven separate jobs. Animal theft; I could transfer to that.'
'But the bounty money. We need it or they'll repossess the goat.'
'I'll get the contract extended from thirty-six months to forty-eight.' He whipped out a ball-point pen, scribbled rapidly on the back of the contract. 'That way it'll be fifty-two fifty less a month.'
The vidphone rang.
'If we hadn't come back down here,' Rick said, 'if we'd stayed up on the roof, with the goat, we wouldn't have gotten this call.'
Going to the vidphone, Iran said, 'Why are you afraid? They're not repossessing the goat, not yet.' She started to lift the receiver.
'It's the department,' he said. 'Say I'm not here.' He headed for the bedroom.
Bryant calling on vidphone
'Hello,' Iran said, into the receiver.
Three more andys, Rick thought to himself, that I should have followed up on today, instead of coming home. On the vidscreen Harry Bryant's face had formed, so it was too late to get away. He walked, with stiff leg muscles, back toward the phone.
'Yes, he's here,' Iran was saying. 'We bought a goat. Come over and see it, Mr Bryant.' A pause as she listened and then held the receiver up to Rick. 'He has something he wants to say to you,' she said. Going over to the empathy box she quickly seated herself and once more gripped the twin handles. She became involved almost at once. Rick stood holding the phone receiver, conscious of her mental departure. Conscious of his own aloneness.
'Hello,' he said into the receiver.
'We have a tail on two of the remaining androids,' Harry Bryant said. He was calling from his office; Rick saw the familiar desk, the litter of documents and papers and kipple. 'Obviously they've become alerted - they've left the address Dave gave you and now they can be found at ... - wait.' Bryant groped about on his desk, at last located the material he wanted.
Automatically Rick searched for his pen; he held the goatpayment contract on his knee and prepared to write.
'Conapt Building 3967-C,' Inspector Bryant said. 'Get over there as soon as you can. We have to assume they know about the ones you picked off, Garland and Luft and Polokov; that's why they've taken unlawful flight.'
'Unlawful,' Rick repeated. To save their lives.
'Iran says you bought a goat,' Bryant said. 'Just today? After you left work?'
'On my way home.'
'I'll come and look at your goat after you retire the remaining androids. By the way - I talked to Dave just now. I told him the trouble they gave you; he says congratulations and be more careful. He says the Nexus-6 types are smarter than he thought. In fact he couldn't believe you got three in one day.'
'Three is enough,' Rick said. 'I can't do anything more. I have to rest.'
'By tomorrow they'll be gone,' Inspector Bryant said. 'Out of our jurisdiction.'
'Not that soon. They'll still be around.'
Bryant said, 'You get over here tonight. Before they get dug in. They won't expect you to move in so fast.'
'Sure they will,' Rick said. 'They'll be waiting for me.'
'Got the shakes? Because of what Polokov -'
'I haven't got the shakes,' Rick said.
'Then what's wrong?'
'Okay,' Rick said. 'I'll get over there.' He started to hang up the phone.'
'Let me know as soon as you get results. I'll be here in my office.'
Rick said, 'If I get them I'm going to buy a sheep.'
'You have a sheep. You've had one as long as I've known you.'
'It's electric,' Rick said. He hung up. A real sheep this time, he said to himself. I have to get one. In compensation.
At the black empathy box his wife crouched, her face rapt.
He stood beside her for a time, his hand resting on her breast; He felt it rise and fall, the life in her, the activity. Iran did not notice him; the experience with Mercer had, as always, become complete.
On the screen the faint, old, robed figure of Mercer toiled upward, and all at once a rock sailed past him. Watching, Rick thought, My god; there's something worse about my situation than his. Mercer doesn't have to do anything alien to him. He suffers but at least he isn't required to violate his own identity.
Bending, he gently removed his wife's finger from the twin handles. He then himself took her place. For the first time in weeks. An impulse: he hadn't planned it; all at once it had happened.
A landscape of weeds confronted him, a desolation. The air smelled of harsh blossoms; this was the desert, and there was no rain.
A man stood before him, a sorrowful light in his weary, pain-drenched eyes.
'Mercer,' Rick said.
'Mercer,' Rick said.
'I am your friend,' the old man said. 'But you must go on as if I did not exist. Can you understand that?' He spread empty hands.
'No,' Rick said. 'I can't understand that. I need help.'
'How can I save you,' the old man said, 'if I can't save myself.' He smiled. 'Don't you see? There is no salvation.'
'Then what's this for?' Rick demanded. 'What are you for?'
'To show you,' Wilbur Mercer said, 'that you aren't alone. I am here with you and always will be. Go and do your task, even though you know it's wrong.'
'Why?' Rick said. 'Why should I do it? I'll quit my job and emigrate.'
The old man said, 'You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe.'
'That's all you can tell me?' Rick said.
A rock whizzed at him; he ducked and the rock struck him on the ear. At once he let go of the handles and again he stood in his own living-room, beside his wife and the empathy box. His head ached wildly from the blow; reaching, he found fresh blood collecting, spilling in huge bright drops down the side of his face.
Iran, with a handkerchief, patted his ear. 'I guess I'm glad you pried me loose. I really can't stand it, being bit. Thanks for taking the rock in my place.'
'I'm going,' Rick said.
'The job?'
'Three jobs.' He took the handkerchief from her and went to the hall door, still dizzy and, now, feeling nausea.
'Good luck,' Iran said.
'I didn't get anything from holding onto those handles,' Rick said. 'Mercer talked to me but it didn't help. He doesn't know any more than I do. He's just an old man climbing a hill to his death.'
'Isn't that the revelation?'
Rick said, 'I have that revelation already.' He opened the hall door. 'I'll see you later.' Stepping out into the hall he shut the door after him. Conapt 3967-C, he reflected, reading it off the back of the contract. That's out in the suburbs; it's mostly abandoned, there. A good place to hide. Except for the lights at night. That's what I'll be going by, he thought. The lights. Phototropic, like the death's head moth. And then after this, he thought, there won't be any more. I'll do something else, earn my living another way. These three are the last. Mercer is right; I have to get this over with. But, he thought, I don't think I can. Two andys together - this isn't a moral question, it's a practical question.
I probably can't retire them, he realized. Even if I try; I'm too tired and too much has happened today. Maybe Mercer knew this, he reflected. Maybe he foresaw everything that will happen.
But I know where I can get help, offered to me before but declined.
He reached the roof and a moment later sat in the darkness of hovercar, dialling.
'Rosen Association,' the answering-service girl said.
'Rachael Rosen,' he said. 'Pardon, sir?'
Rick grated, 'Get me Rachael Rosen.'
'Is Miss Rosen expecting-'
'm sure she is,' he said. He waited.
Ten minutes later Rachael Rosens small dark face appeared on the vidscreen. 'Hello, Mr Deckard.'
'Are you busy right now or can I talk to you?' he said. 'As you said earlier today.' It did not seem like today; a generation had risen and declined since he had talked to her last. And all the weight, all the weariness of it, had recapitulated itself in his body; he felt the physical burden. Perhaps, he thought, because of the rock. With the handkerchief he dabbed at his still-bleeding ear.
'Your ear is cut,' Rachael said. 'What a shame.'
Rick said, 'Did you really think I wouldn't call you? As you said?'
'I told you,' Rachael said, 'that without me one of the Nexus-6s would get you before you got it.'
'You were wrong.'
'But youare calling. Anyhow. Do you want me to come down there to San Francisco?'
'Tonight,' he said.
'Oh, it's too late. I'll come tomorrow; it's an hour trip.'
'I have been told I have to get them tonight.' He paused and then said, 'Out of the original eight, three are left.'
'You sound like you've had a just awful time.'
'If you don't fly down here tonight,' he said, 'I'll go after them alone and I won't be able to retire them. I just bought a goat.' he added. 'With the bounty money from the three I did get'
'You humans.' Rachael laughed. 'Goats smell terrible.'
'Only male goats. I read it in the book of instructions that came with it.'
'You really are tired,' Rachael said. 'You look dazed. Are you sure you know what you're doing, trying for three more Nexus-6s the same day? No one has ever retired six androids in one day.'
'Franklin Powers,' Rick said, 'About a year ago, in Chicago. He retired seven.'
'The obsolete McMillan Y-4 variety,' Rachael said. 'This is something else.' She pondered. 'Rick, I can't do it. I haven't even had dinner.'
'I needed you,' he said. Otherwise I'm going to die, he said to himself. I know it; Mercer knew it; I think you know it, too. And I'm wasting my time appealing to you, he reflected. An android can't be appealed to; there's nothing in there to reach.
Rachael said, 'I'm sorry, Rick, but I can't do it tonight. It'll have to be tomorrow.'
'Android vengeance,' Rick said.
'What?'
'Because I tripped you up on the Voigt-Kampff scale.'
'Do you think that?' Wide-eyed, she said, 'Really?'
'Good-bye,' he said, and started to hang up.
'Listen,' Rachael said rapidly. 'You're not using your head.'
'It seems that way to you because you Nexus-6 types are cleverer than humans.'
'No, I really don't understand,' Rachael sighed. 'I can tell that you don't want to do this job tonight - maybe not at all. Are you sure you want me to make it possible for you to retire the three remaining androids? Or do you want me to persuade you not to try?'
'Come down here,' he said, 'and we'll rent a hotel room.'
'Why?'
'Something I heard today,' he said hoarsely. 'About situations involving human men and android women. Come down here to San Francisco tonight and I'll give up on the remainipg andys. We'll do something else.'
She eyed him, then abruptly said, 'Okay, I'll fly down. Where should I meet you?'
'At the St Francis. It's the only halfway decent hotel still in operation in the Bay Area.'
'And you won't do anything until I get there.'
'I'll sit in the hotel room,' he said, 'and watch Buster Friendly on TV. His guest for the last three days has been Amanda Werner. I like her; I could watch her the rest of my life. She has breasts that smile.' He hung up, then, and sat for a time, his mind vacant. At last the cold of the car roused him; he switched on the ignition key and a moment later headed in the direction of downtown San Francisco. And the St Francis Hotel.

16

In the sumptuous and enormous hotel room Rick Deckard sat reading the typed carbon sheets on the two androids Roy and Irmgard Baty. In these two cases telescopic snapshots had been included, fuzzy 3-D colour prints which he could barely make out. The woman, he decided, looks attractive. Roy Baty, however, is something different. Something worse.
A pharmacist on Mars, he read. Or at least the android had made use of that cover. In actuality it had probably been a manual labourer, a field hand, with aspirations for something better. Do androids dream? Rick asked himself. Evidently; that's why they occasionally kill their employers and flee here. A better life, without servitude. Like Luba Luft; singing "Don Giovanni" and "Le Nozze" instead of toiling across the face of a barren rock-strewn field. On a fundamentally uninhabitable colony world.

Roy Baty (the poop sheet informed him) has an aggressive, assertive air of ersatz authority. Given to mystical preoccupations, this android proposed the group escape attempt, underwriting it ideologically with a pretentious fiction as to the sacredness of so-called android 'life'. In addition, this android stole, and experimented with, various mind-fusing drugs, claiming when caught that it hoped to promote in androids a group experience similar to that of Mercerism, which it pointed out remains unavailable to androids.

The account had a pathetic quality. A rough, cold android, hoping to undergo an experience from which, due to a deliberatly built-in defect, It remained excluded. But he could not work up much concern for Roy Baty; he caught, from Dave's jottings, a repellent quality hanging about this particular android. Baty had tried to force the fusion experience into existence for itself - and then, when that fell through, it had engineered the killing of a variety of human beings ... followed by the flight to Earth. And now, especaily as of today, the chipping away of the original eight androids until only the three remained. And they, the outstanding members of the illegal group, were also doomed, since if he failed to get them someone else would. Time and tide, he thought. The cycle of life. Ending in this, the last twilight. Before the silence of death. He perceived in this a micro-universe, complete.
Rachel arrived at the Hotel
The door of the hotel room banged open. 'What a flight,' Rachael Rosen said breathlessly, entering in a long fish-scale coat with matching bra and shorts; she carried beside her big, ornate, mail-pouch purse, a paper bag. 'This is a nice room.' She examined her wristwatch. 'Less than an hour; I made good tjme. Here.' She held out the paper bag. 'I bought a bottle. Bourbon.'
Rick said, 'The worst of the eight is still alive. The one who organized them.' He held the poop sheet on Roy Baty toward her; Rachael set down the paper bag and accepted the carbon sheet.
'You've located this one?' she asked, after reading.
'I have a conapt number. Out in the suburbs where possibly a couple of deteriorated. special, antheads or chickenheads, hang out and go through their versions of living.'
Rachael held out her hand. 'Let's see about the others.'
'Both females.' He passed her the sheets, one dealing with Irmgard Baty, the other an android calling itself Pris Stratton.
Glancing at the final sheet Rachael said, 'Oh -' She tossed the sheets down, moved over to the window of the room to look out at downtown San Francisco. 'I think you're going to get thrown by the last one. Maybe not; maybe you don't care.' She had turned pale and her voice shook. All at once she bad become exceptionally unsteady.
'Exactly what are you muttering about?' He retrieved the sheets, studied them, wondering which part had upset Rachael.
'Let's open the bourbon.' Rachael carried the paper bag into the bathroom, got two glasses, returned; she still seemed distracted and uncertain - and preoccupied. He sensed the rapid flight and her hidden thoughts: the transitions showed on her frowning, tense face. 'Can you get this open?' she asked. 'It's worth a fortune, you realize. It's not synthetic; it's from before the war, made from genuine mash.'
Taking the bottle he opened it, poured bourbon in the two tumblers. 'Tell me what's the matter,' he said.
Rachael said. 'On the phone you told me if I flew down here tonight you'd give up on the remaining three andys. "We'll do something else," you said. But here we are-'
'Tell me what upset you,' he said.
Facing him defiantly, Rachael said, 'Tell me what we're going to do instead of fussing and fretting around about those last three Nexus-6 andys.' She unbuttoned her coat, carried it to the closet, and hung it up. This gave him his first chance to have a good long look at her.
Rachael's proportions, he noticed once again, were odd; with her heavy mass of dark hair her head seemed large, and because of her diminutive breasts her body assumed a lank, almost childlike stance. But her great eyes, with their elaborate lashes, could only be those of a grown woman; there the resemblance to adolescence ended. Rachael rested very slightly on the fore-part of her feet, and her arms, as they hung, bent at the joint: the stance, he reflected, of a wary hunter of perhaps the Cro-Magnon persuasion. The race of tall hunters, he said to himself. No excess flesh, a flat belly, small behind and smaller bosom - Rachael had been modelled on the Celtic type of build, anachronistic and attractive. Below the brief shorts her legs, slender, had a neutral, nonsexual quality, not much rounded off in nubile curves. The total impression was good, however. Although definitely that of a girl, not a woman. Except for the restless, shrewd eyes.
He sipped the bourbon; the power of it, the authoritative strong taste and scent, had become almost unfamiliar to him and he had trouble swallowing. Rachael, in contrast, had no difficulty with hers.
Seating herself on the bed Rachael smoothed absently at the spread; her expression had now become one of moodiness. He set his glass down on the bedside table and arranged himself beside her. Under his gross weight the bed gave, and Rachael shifted her position.
'What is it?' he said. Reaching, he took bold of her hand; it felt cold, bony, slightly moist. 'What upset you?'
Rachael and Pris are of the same type
'That last goddamn Nexus-6 type,' Rachael said, eunciating with effort, 'is the same type as I am.' She stared down at the bedspread, found a thread, and began rolling it into a pellet. 'Didn't you notice the description? It's of me, too. She may wear her hair differently and dress differently - she may even have bought a wig. But when you see her you'll know what I mean.' She laughed sardonically. 'It's a good thing the association admitted I'm an andy; otherwise you'd probably have gone mad when you caught sight of Pris Stratton. Or thought she was me.'
'Why does that bother you so much?'
'Hell, I'll be along when you retire her.'
'Maybe not. Maybe I won't find her.'
Rachael said, 'I know Nexus-6 psychology. That's why I'm here; that's why I can help you. They're all holed up together, the last three of them. Clustered around the deranged one calling himself Roy Baty. He'll be masterminding their crucial, all-out, final defence.' Her lips twisted. 'Jesus,' she said.
'Cheer up,' he said; he cupped her sharp, small chin in the palm of his hand, lifted her head so that she had to face him. I wonder what it's like to kiss an android, he said to himself. Leaning forward an inch he kissed her dry lips. No reaction followed; Rachael remained impassive. As if unaffected. And yet he sensed otherwise. Or perhaps it was wishful thinking.
'I wish,' Rachael said, 'that I had known that before I came. I never would have flown down here. I think you're asking too much. You know what I have? Toward this Pris android?'
'Empathy,' he said.
'Something like that. Identification; there goes I. My god; maybe that's what'll happen. In the confusion you'll retire me not her. And she can go back to Seattle and live my life. I never felt this way before. We are machines, stamped out like bottle caps. It's an illusion that I - I personally - really exist; I'm just representative of a type.' She shuddered.
He could not help being amused; Rachael had become so mawkishly morose. 'Ants don't feel like that,' he said, 'and they are physically identical.'
'Ants. They don't feel period.'
'Identical human twins. They don't -'
'But they identify with each other; I understand they have emnpathic, special bond.' Rising, she got to the bourbon bottle, a little unsteadily; she refilled her glass and again drank swiftly. For a time she slouched about the room, brows knitted darkly, and then, as if sliding his way by chance, she settled back onto the bed; she swung her legs up and stretched out, leaning against the fat pillows. And sighed. 'Forget the three andys' Her voice filled with weariness. 'I'm so worn out, from the trip I guess. And from all I learned today. I just want to sleep.' She shut her eyes. 'If I die,' she murmured, 'maybe I'll be born again when the Rosen Association stamps out its next unit of my subtype.' She opened her eyes and glared at him ferociously. 'Do you know,' she said, 'why I really came here? Why Eldon and the other Rosens - the human ones - wanted me to go along with you?'
'To observe,' he said. 'To detail exactly what the Nexus-6 does that gives it away on the Voigt-Kampff test.'
'On the test or otherwise. Everything that gives it a different quality. And then I report back and the association makes modifications of its zygote-bath DNS factors. And we then have the Nexus-7. And when that gets caught we modify again and eventually the association has a type that can't be distinguished.'
'Do you know of the Boneli Reflex-Arc Test?' he asked.
'We're working on the spinal ganglia, too. Someday the Boneli test will fade into yesterday's hoary shroud of spiritual oblivion.' She smiled innocuously - at variance with her words. At this point he could not discern her degree of seriousness. A topic of world-shaking importance, yet dealt with facetiously; an android trait, possibly, he thought. No emotional awareness, no feeling-sense of the actual meaning of what she said. Only the hollow, formal, intellectual definitions of the separate terms.
And, more, Rachael had begun to tease him. Imperceptibly she had passed from lamenting her condition to taunting him about his.
'Damn you,' he said.
Rachael laughed. 'i'm drunk. I can't go with you. If you leave here -' She gestured in dismissal. I'll stay behind and sleep and you can tell me later what happened.'
'Except,' he said, 'there won't be a later because Roy Baty will nail me.'
'But I can't help you anyhow now because I'm drunk. Anyhow, you know the truth, the brick-hard, irregular slithery surface of truth. I'm just an observer and I won't intervene to save you; I don't care if Roy Baty nails you or not. I care whether I get nailed.' She opened her eyes round and wide. 'Christ, I'm empathic about myself. And, see, if I go to that suburban broken-down conapt building -' She reached out, toyed with a button of his shirt; in slow, facile twists she began unbuttoning it. 'I don't dare go because androids have no loyalty to one another and I know that that goddamn Pris Stratton will destroy me and occupy my place. See? Take off your coat.'
'Why?'
'So we can go to bed,' Rachael said.
'I bought a black Nubian goat,' he said. 'I haye to retire the three more andys. I have to finish up my job and go home to my wife.' He got up, walked around the bed to the bottle of bourbon. Standing there he carefully poured himself a second drink; his hands, he observed, shook only very slightly. Probably from fatigue. Both of us, he realized, are tired. Too tired to hunt down three andys, with the worst of the eight calling the shots.
Standing there be realized, all at once, that be had acquired an overt, incontestable fear directed toward the principal android. It all hung on Baty - had hung on it from the start. Up to now he had encountered and retired progressively more ominous manifestations of Baty. Now came Baty itself. Thinking that he felt the fear grow; it snared him completely, now that he had let it approach his conscious mind. 'I can't go out you now,' he said to Rachael. 'I can't even leave here. Polokov came after me; Garland virtually came after me.'
'You think Roy Baty will look you up?' Setting down her empty glass she bent forward, reached back, and unfastened her bra. With agility she slid it from her, then stood, swaying, and grinning because she swayed. 'In my purse,' she said, 'I have a mechanism which our autofac on Mars builds as an emer -' She grimaced. 'An emergency safety thingamajing, -jig, while they're putting a newly made andy through its routine inspection checks. Get it out. It resembles an oyster. You'll see it.'
He began hunting through the purse. Like a human woman, Rachael had every class of object conceivable filched and hidden away in her purse; he found himself rooting interminably.
Meanwhile, Racbael kicked off her boots and unzipped her shorts; balancing on one foot she caught the discarded fabric with her toe and tossed it across the room. She then dropped onto the bed, rolled over to fumble for her glass, accidentally pushed the glass to the carpeted floor. 'Damn,' she said, and once again got shakily to her feet; in her underpants she stood watching him at work on her purse, and then, with careful deliberation and attention she drew the bedcovers back, got in, drew the covers over her.
'Is this it?' He held up a metallic sphere with a button-stem projecting.
'That cancels an android into catalepsy,' Rachael said, her eyes shut. 'For a few seconds. Suspends its respiration; yours, too, but humans can function without respiring - perspiring? for a couple of minutes, but the vagus nerve of an andy -'
'I know.' He straightened up. 'The android autonomic nervous system isn't as flexible at cutting in and out as ours. But as you say, this wouldn't work for more than five or six seconds.'
'Long enough,' Rachael murmured, 'to save your life. So, see -' She roused herself, sat up in the bed. 'If Roy Baty shows up here you can be holding that in your hand and you can press the stem on that thing. And while Roy Baty is frozen stiff with no air supply to his blood and his brain cells deteriorating you can kill Roy Baty with your laser.'
'You have a laser tube,' he said. 'In your purse.'
'A fake. Androids' - she yawned, eyes again shut - 'aren't permitted to carry lasers.'
He walked over to the bed.
Squirming about, Rachael managed to roll over at last onto her stomach, face buried in the white lower sheet. 'This is a clean, noble, virgin type of bed,' she stated. 'Only clean, noble girls who -' She pondered. 'Androids can't bear children,' she said, then. 'Is that a loss?'
He finished undressing her. Exposed her pale, cold loins.
'Is it a loss?' Racbael repeated. 'I don't really know; I have no way to tell. How does it feel to have a child? How does it feel to be born, for that matter? We're not born: we don't - grow up; instead of dying from illness or old age we wear out like ants. Ants again; that's what we are. Not you; I mean me. Chitinous reflex-machines who aren't really alive.' She twisted her head to one side, said loudly, 'I'm not alive! You're not going to bed with a woman. Don't be disappointed; okay? Have you ever made love to an android before?'
'No,' he said, taking off his shirt and tie.
'I understand - they tell me - it's convincing if you don't think too much about it. But if you think too much, if you reflect on what you're doing - then you can't go on. For ahem physiological reasons.'
Bending, he kissed her bare shoulder.
'Thanks, Rick,' she said wanly. 'Remember, though: don't think about it, just do it. Don't pause and be philosophical, because from a philosophical standpoint it's dreary. For us both.'
He said 'Afterwards I still intend to look for Roy Baty. I still need you to be there. I know that laser tube you have in your purse is -'
'You think I'll retire one of your andys for you?'
'I think in spite of what you said you'll help me all you can. Otherwise you wouldn't be lying there in that bed.'
'I love you,' Rachael said. 'If I entered a room and found a sofa covered with your hide I'd score very high on the Voigt-Kampff test.'
Tonight sometime, he thought as he clicked off the bedside light, I will retire a Nexus-6 which looks exactly like this naked girl. My good god, he thought; I've wound up where Phil Resch said. Go to bed with her first, he remembered. Then kill her. 'I can't do it,' he said, and backed away from the bed.
'I wish you could,' Rachael said. Her voice wavered.
'Not because of you. Because of Pris Stratton; what I have to do to her.'
'We are not the same. I don't care about Pris Stratton. Listen.' Rachael trashed about in the bed, sitting up; in the gloom he could dimly make out her almost breastless, trim shape. 'Go to bed with me and I'll retire Stratton. Okay? Because I cann't stand getting this close and then-'
'Thank you,' he said; gratitude - undoubtedly because of the bourbon - rose up inside him, constricting his throat. Two, he thought. I now have only two to retire; just the Batys. Would Rachael really do it? Evidently. Androids thought and functioned that way. Yet he had never come across anything quite loike this.'
'Goddamn it, get into bed,' Rachael said.
He got into bed.

17

Afterward they enjoyed a great luxury: Rick had room service bring up coffee. He sat for a long time within the arms of a green, black, and gold leaf lounge chair, sipping coffee and meditating about the next few hours. Rachael, in the bathroom, squeaked and hummed and splashed in the midst of a hot shower.
'You made a good deal when you made that deal,' she called when she had shut off the water; dripping, her hair tied up with a rubber band, she appeared bare and pink at the bathroom door. 'We androids can't control our physical, sensual passions. You probably knew that; in my opinion you took advantage of me.' She did not, however, appear genuinely angry. If anything she had become cheerful and certainly as human as any girl he had known. 'Do we really have to go track down those three andys tonight?'
'Yes,' he said. Two for me to retire, he thought; one for you. As Rachael put it, the deal had been made.
Gathering a giant white bath towel about her, Rachael said, 'Did you enjoy that?'
'Yes.'
'Would you ever go to bed with an android again?'
'If it was a girl. If she resembled you.'
"Four years lifespan"
Rachael said, 'Do you know what the lifespan of a human. old robot such as myself is? I've been in existence two years. How long do you calculate I have?'
After a hesitation he said, 'About two more years.'
'They never could solve that problem. I mean cell replacement. Perpetual or anyhow semi-perpetual renewal. Well, so it goes.' Vigorously she began drying herself. Her face had become expressionless.
'I'm sorry,' Rick said.
'Hell,' Rachael said, 'I'm sorry I mentioned it. Anyhow it keeps humans from running off and living with an android.'
'And this is true with you Nexus-6 types too?
'It's the metabolism. Not the brain unit' She trotted out, swept up her underpants, and began to dress.
He, too, dressed. Then together, saying little, the two of. them journeyed to the roof field, where his hovercar had been parked by the pleasant white-clad human attendant.
As they headed toward the suburbs of San Francisco, Rachael said, 'It's a nice night.'
'My goat is probably asleep by now,' he sai. 'Or maybe goats are nocturnal. Some animals never sleep. Sheep never do, not that I could detect; whenever you look at them they're looking back. Expecting to be fed.'
'What sort of wife do you have?'
He did not answer.
'Do you-'
'If you weren't an android,' Rick interrupted, 'if I could legally marry you, I would.'
Rachael said, 'Or we could live in sin, except that I'm not alive.'
'Legally you're not. But really you are. Biologically. You're not mad out of transistorized circuits like a false animal; you are an organic entity.' And in two years, he thought, you'll wear out and die. Because we never solved the problem of cell replacement, as you pointed out. So I guess it doesn't matter anyhow.
This is my end, he said to himself. As a bounty hunter. After the Batys there won't be any more. Not after this, tonight.
'You look so sad,' Rachael said.
Putting his hand out he touched her cheek.
'You're not going to be able to hunt androids any longer,' she said calmly. 'So don't look sad. Please.'
He stared at her.
"Except Phil Resch"
'No bounty hunter ever has gone on,' Rachael said. 'After being with me. Except one. A very cynical man. Phil Resch. And he's nutty; he works out in left field on his own.'
'I see' Rick said. He felt numb. Completely. Throughout his entire body.
'But this trip we're taking,' Rachael said, 'won't be wasted, because you're going to meet a wonderful, spiritual man.'
'Roy Baty,' he said. 'Do you know all of them?'
'I knew all of them, when they still existed. I know three, now, We tried to stop you this morning, before you started out with Dave Holden's list. I tried again, just before Polokov reached you. But then after that I had to wait.'
'Until I broke down,' he said. 'And had to call you.'
'Luba Luft and I had been close, very close friends for almost two years. What did you think of her? Did you like her?'
'I liked her.'
'But you killed her.'
'Phil Resch killed her.'
'Oh, so Phil accompanied you back to the opera house. We didn't know that; our communications broke down about then. We knew just that she had been killed; we naturally assumed by you.'
'From Dave's notes,' he said, 'I think I can still go ahead and retire Roy Baty. But maybe not Irmgard Baty,' And not Pris Stratton, he thought. Even now; even knowing this. 'So all that took place at the hotel,' he said, 'consisted of a -'
Plan from the Rosen company
'The association,' Rachael said, 'wanted to reach the bounty hunters here and in the Soviet Union. This seemed to work for reasons which we do not fully understand. Our limitation again, I guess.'
'I doubt if it works as often or as well as you say,' he said thickly.
'But it has with you.'
'We'll see.'
'I already know,' Rachael said. 'When I saw that expression on your face, that grief. I look for that.'
'How many times have you done this?'
'I don't remember. Seven, eight. No, I believe it's nine.' She - or rather it - nodded. 'Yes, nine times.'
'The idea is old-fashioned,' Rick said. Startled, Rachael said, 'W-what?'
Pushing the steering wheel away from him he put the car into a gliding decline. 'Or anyhow that's how it strikes me. I'm going to kill you,' he said. 'And go on to Roy and Irmgard Baty and Pris Stratton alone.'
'That's why you're landing?' Apprehensively, she said, 'There's a fine; I'm the property, the legal property, of the association. I'm not an escaped android who fled here from Mars; I'm not in the same class as the others.'
'But,' he said, 'if I can kill you then I can kill them.'
Her hands dived for her bulging, overstuffed, kipple-filled purse; she searched frantically, then gave up. 'Goddamn this purse,' she said with ferocity. 'I never can lay my hands on anything in it. Will you kill me in a way that won't hurt? I mean, do it carefully. If I don't fight; okay? I promise not to fight. Do you agree?'
Rick said, 'I understand now why Phil Resch said what he said. He wasn't being cynical; be had just learned too much. Going through this - I can't blame him. It warped him.'
Rachael surrendering
'But the wrong way.' She seemed more externally composed, now. But still fundamentally frantic and tense. Yet, the fire waned; the life force oozed out of her, as he had so often witnessed before with other androids. The classic resignation. Mechanical, intellectual acceptance of that which a genuine organism - with two billion years of the pressure to live and evolve hagriding it - could never have reconciled itself to.
'I can't stand the way you androids give up,' he said savagly. The car now swooped almost to the ground; he had to jerk the wheel toward him to avoid a crash. Braking, he managed to bring the car to a staggering, careening halt; he slammed off the motor and got out his laser tube.
'At the occipital bone, the posterior base of my skull,' Rachael said. 'Please.' She twisted about so that she did not have to look at the laser tube; the beam would enter unperceived.
Putting his laser tube away Rick said, 'I can't do what Phil said.' He snapped the motor back on, and a moment they had taken off again.
'If you're ever going to do it,' Rachael said, 'do it now. Don't make me wait.'
'I'm not going to kill you.' He steered the car in the direction of downtown San Francisco once again. 'Your car's at the St Francis, isn't it? I'll let you off there and you can head for Seattle.' That ended what he had to say; he drove in silence.
'Thanks for not killing me,' Rachael said presently.
'Hell, as you said you've only got two years of life left, anyhow. And I've got fifty. I'll live twenty-five times as long as you.'
'But you really look down on me,' Rachael said. 'For what I did.' Assurance had returned to her; the litany of her voice picked up pace. 'You've gone the way of the others. The bounty hunters before you. Each time they get furious and talk wildly about killing me, but when the time comes they can't do it. Just like you, just now.' She lit a cigarette, inhaled with relish. 'YOu realize what this means, don't you? It means I was right; you won't be able to retire any more androids; it won't be just me, it'll be the Batys and Stratton, too. So go on home to your goat. And get some rest.' Suddenly she brushed at her coat, violently. 'Yife! I got a burning ash from my cigarette - there, it's gone.' She sank back against the seat, relaxing.
He said nothing.
'That goat,' Rachael said. 'You love the goat more than me. More than you love your wife, probably. First the goat, then your wife, then last of all -' She laughed merrily. 'What can you do but laugh?'
He did not answer. They continued in silence for a while and then Rachael poked about, found the car's radio, and switched it on.
'Turn it off,' Rick said.
'Turn off Buster Friendly and his Friendly Friends? Turn off Amanda Werner and Oscar Scruggs? It's time to hear Buster's big sensational expose, which is finally almost arrived.' She stooped to read the dial of her watch by the radio's light. 'Very soon now. Did you already know about it? He's been talking about it, building up to it, for -'
The radio said, '- ah jes wan ta tell ya, folks, that ahm sitten hih with my pal Bustuh, an we're tawkin en havin a real mighty fine time, waitin expectantly as we ah with each tick uh the clock foh what ah understan is the mos important announcenient of -'
Rick shut the radio off. 'Oscar Scruggs,' he said. 'The voice of intelligent man.'
Buster Friendly's announced relevation
Instantly reaching, Rachael clicked the radio back on. 'I want to listen. I intend to listen. This is important, what Buster Friendly has to say on his show tonight.' The idiotic voice babbled once more from the speaker, and Rachael Rosen settled back and made herself comfortable. Beside him in the darkness the coal of her cigarette glowed like the rump of a complacent lightning bug: a steady, unwavering index of Rachael Rosen's achievement. Her victory over him.

18

'Bring the rest of my property up here,' Pris ordered J.R, Isidore. 'In particular I want the TV set. So we can hear Buster's announcement.'
'Yes,' Irmgard Baty agreed, bright-eyed, like a darting, plumed swift. 'We need the TV; we've been waiting a long time for tonight and now it'll be starting soon.'
Isidore said, 'My own set gets the government channel.'
Off in the corner of the living-room, seated in a deep chair as if he intended to remain permanently, as if he had taken up lodging in the chair, Roy Baty belched and said patiently, 'Buster Friendly and his Friendly Friends that we want to watch, Iz. Or do you want me to call you J.R.? Anyhow, do you understand? So will you go get the set?'
Alone, Isidore made his way down the echoing, empty hall to the stairs. The potent, strong fragrance of happiness still bloomed in him, the sense of being - for the first time in his dull life - useful. Others depend on me now, he exulted as he truged down the dust-impacted steps to the level beneath.
And, he thought, it'll be nice to see Buster Friendly on TV again, instead of just listening on the radio in the store truck.
And that's right, he realized; Buster Friendly is going to reveal his carefully documented sensational expose tonight. So because of Pris and Roy and Irmgard I get to watch what will probably be the most important piece of news to be released in many years. How about that, he said to himself.
Life, for J.R. Isidore, had definitely taken an upswing.
He entered Pris's former apartment, unplugged the TV set, and detached the antennae. The silence, all at once, penetrated; he felt his arms grow vague. In the absence of the Batys and Pris he found himself fading out, becoming strangely like the inert television set which he had just unplugged. You have to be with other people, he thought. In order to live at - all. I mean, before they came here I could stand it, being alone in the building. But now it's changed. You can't go back, he thought. You can't go from people to nonpeople. In panic he thought, I'm dependent on them. Thank god they stayed.
It would require two trips to transfer Pris's possessions to the apartment above. Hoisting the TV set he decided to take it first, then the suitcases and remaining clothes.
A few minutes later he had gotten the TV set upstairs; his fingers groaning he placed it on a coffee table in his livingroom. The Batys and Pris watched impassively.
'We get a good signal in this building,' he panted as he plugged in the cord and attached the antennae. 'When I used to get Buster Friendly and his -'
'Just turn the set on,' Roy Baty said. 'And stop talking.'
He did so, then hurried to the door. 'One more trip,' he said, 'will do it.' He lingered, warming himself at the hearth of their presence.
'Fine,' Pris said remotely.
Isidore started off once more. I think, he thought, they're exploiting me sort of. But he did not care. They're still good friends to have, he said to himself.
Downstairs again, he gathered the girl's clothing together, stuffed every piece into the suitcase, then laboured back down the hall once again and up the stairs.
On a step ahead of him something small moved in the dust.
Istantly he dropped the suitcases; he whipped out a plastic medice bottle, which, like everyone else, he carried for just for this. A spider, undistinguished but alive. Shakily he eased it into the bottle and snapped the cap - perforated by means of a Idle - shut tight.
Upstairs, at the door of his apartment, he paused to get his breath.

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