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the vote Buying animals 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. 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. 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. 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.'
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.
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.
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.
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.
'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.
'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. NEXT