Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (16 page)

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

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

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

“Do you think androids have souls?” Rick interrupted.

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

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

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

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

“You’re sure I’m an android? Is that really what Garland said?”

“That’s what Garland said.”

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

Rick said, “I’m getting out of this business.”

“And go into what?”

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

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

“They can use androids. Much better if andys do it. I can’t anymore; I’ve had enough. She was a wonderful singer. The planet could have used her. This is insane.”

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

“As police,” Rick said. “As bounty hunters.”

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

“Yes, your squirrel. I forgot about your squirrel.”

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

“Andys can’t will anything. They can’t possess anything to will.”

“Then just take it,” Phil Resch said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How’ll you kill yourself without it?” Rick asked. “If you fail the test?”

“I’ll hold my breath.”

“Chrissake,” Rick said. “It can’t be done.”

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

“But to die that way,” Rick protested.

“There’s no pain. What’s the matter with it?”

“It’s—” He gestured. Unable to find the right words.

“I don’t really think I’m going to have to,” Phil Resch said.

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

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

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

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

“Sure.”

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

“
Puberty
dates from 1894,” Rick said shortly. “Nothing but realism existed then; you have to take that into account.”

“But that other one, of the man holding his ears and yelling—that wasn’t representational.”

Opening his briefcase, Rick fished out his test gear.

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

“Six or seven.” He handed the adhesive pad to Phil Resch. “Attach that to your cheek. Firmly. And this light—” He aimed it. “This stays focused on your eye. Don’t move; keep your eyeball as steady as you can.”

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

Rick said, “Do you think you can control it?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Of course we don’t test for that.”

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

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

“We couldn’t protect ourselves.”

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

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

“Sure, Rick,” Phil Resch said obligingly.

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

“No particular response,” Phil Resch said.

“What’d the needles hit?”

“The left one 2.8. The right one 3.3.”

Rick said, “A female android.”

“Now they’re up to 4.0 and 6. respectively.”

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

“Meaning?”

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

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

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

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

“You’re in a spot, Deckard,” Phil Resch said; it seemed to amuse him.