Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (27 page)

When he lifted the toad out, he felt its peculiar coolness; in his hands its body seemed dry and wrinkled—almost flabby—and as cold as if it had taken up residence in a grotto miles under the earth away from the sun. Now the toad squirmed; with its weak hind feet it tried to pry itself from his grip, wanting, instinctively, to go flopping off. A big one, he thought; full-grown and wise. Capable, in its own fashion, of surviving even that which we’re not really managing to survive. I wonder where it finds the water for its eggs.

So this is what Mercer sees, he thought as he painstakingly tied the cardboard box shut—tied it again and again. Life which we can no longer distinguish; life carefully buried up to its forehead in the carcass of a dead world. In every cinder of the universe Mercer probably perceives inconspicuous life. Now I know, he thought. And once having seen through Mercer’s eyes, I probably will never stop.

And no android, he thought, will cut the legs from this. As they did from the chickenhead’s spider.

He placed the carefully tied box on the car seat and got in behind the wheel. It’s like being a kid again, he thought. Now all the weight had left him, the monumental and oppressive fatigue. Wait until Iran hears about this; he snatched the vidphone receiver, started to dial. Then paused. I’ll keep it as a surprise, he concluded. It’ll only take thirty or forty minutes to fly back there.

Eagerly he switched the motor on, and, shortly, had zipped up into the sky, in the direction of San Francisco, seven hundred miles to the south.

At the Penfield mood organ, Iran Deckard sat with her right index finger touching the numbered dial. But she did not dial; she felt too listless and ill to want anything: a burden which closed off the future and any possibilities which it might once have contained. If Rick were here, she thought, he’d get me to dial 3 and that way I’d find myself wanting to dial something important, ebullient joy or if not that then possibly an 888, the desire to watch TV no matter what’s on it. I wonder what is on it, she thought. And then she wondered again where Rick had gone. He may be coming back, and on the other hand he may not be, she said to herself, and felt her bones within her shrink with age.

A knock sounded at the apartment door.

Putting down the Penfield manual, she jumped up, thinking, I don’t need to dial now; I already have it—if it is Rick. She ran to the door, opened the door wide.

“Hi,” he said. There he stood, a cut on his cheek, his clothes wrinkled and gray, even his hair saturated with dust. His hands, his face—dust clung to every part of him, except his eyes. Round with awe his eyes shone, like those of a little boy; he looks, she thought, as if he has been playing and now it’s time to give up and come home. To rest and wash and tell about the miracles of the day.

“It’s nice to see you,” she said.

“I have something.” He held a cardboard box with both hands; when he entered the apartment he did not set it down. As if, she thought, it contained something too fragile and too valuable to let go of; he wanted to keep it perpetually in his hands.

She said, “I’ll fix you a cup of coffee.” At the stove she pressed the coffee button, and in a moment had put the imposing mug by his place at the kitchen table. Still holding the box, he seated himself, and on his face the round-eyed wonder remained. In all the years she had known him she had not encountered this expression before. Something had happened since she had seen him last; since, last night, he had gone off in his car. Now he had come back and this box had arrived with him: he held, in the box, everything that had happened to him.

“I’m going to sleep,” he announced. “All day. I phoned in and got Harry Bryant; he said take the day off and rest. Which is exactly what I’m going to do.” Carefully he set the box down on the table and picked up his coffee mug; dutifully, because she wanted him to, he drank his coffee.

Seating herself across from him she said, “What do you have in the box, Rick?”

“A toad.”

“Can I see it?” She watched as he untied the box and removed the lid. “Oh,” she said, seeing the toad; for some reason it frightened her. “Will it bite?” she asked.

“Pick it up. It won’t bite; toads don’t have teeth.” Rick lifted the toad out and extended it toward her. Stemming her aversion, she accepted it. “I thought toads were extinct,” she said as she turned it over, curious about its legs; they seemed almost useless. “Can toads jump like frogs? I mean, will it jump out of my hands suddenly?”

“The legs of toads are weak,” Rick said. “That’s the main difference between a toad and a frog, that and water. A frog remains near water but a toad can live in the desert. I found this in the desert, up near the Oregon border. Where everything had died.” He reached to take it back from her. But she had discovered something; still holding it upside down, she poked at its abdomen and then, with her nail, located the tiny control panel. She flipped the panel open.

“Oh.” His face fell by degrees. “Yeah, so I see; you’re right.” Crestfallen, he gazed mutely at the false animal; he took it back from her, fiddled with the legs as if baffled—he did not seem quite to understand. He then carefully replaced it in its box. “I wonder how it got out there in the desolate part of California like that. Somebody must have put it there. No way to tell what for.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you—about it being electrical.” She put her hand out, touched his arm; she felt guilty, seeing the effect it had on him, the change.

“No,” Rick said. “I’m glad to know. Or rather—” He became silent. “I’d prefer to know.”

“Do you want to use the mood organ? To feel better? You always have gotten a lot out of it, more than I ever have.”

“I’ll be okay.” He shook his head, as if trying to clear it, still bewildered. “The spider Mercer gave the chickenhead, Isidore; it probably was artificial, too. But it doesn’t matter. The electric things have their lives, too. Paltry as those lives are.”

Iran said, “You look as if you’ve walked a hundred miles.”

“It’s been a long day.” He nodded.

“Go get into bed and sleep.”

He stared at her then, as if perplexed. “It is over, isn’t it?” Trustingly, he seemed to be waiting for her to tell him, as if she would know. As if hearing himself say it meant nothing; he had a dubious attitude toward his own words; they didn’t become real, not until she agreed.

“It’s over,” she said.

“God, what a marathon assignment,” Rick said. “Once I began on it there wasn’t any way for me to stop; it kept carrying me along, until finally I got to the Batys, and then suddenly I didn’t have anything to do. And that—” He hesitated, evidently amazed at what he had begun to say. “That part was worse,” he said. “After I finished. I couldn’t stop because there would be nothing left after I stopped. You were right this morning when you said I’m nothing but a crude cop with crude cop hands.”

“I don’t feel that anymore,” she said. “I’m just damn glad to have you come back home where you ought to be.” She kissed him and that seemed to please him; his face lit up, almost as much as before—before she had shown him that the toad was electric.

“Do you think I did wrong?” he asked. “What I did today?”

“No.”

“Mercer said it was wrong but I should do it anyhow. Really weird. Sometimes it’s better to do something wrong than right.”

“It’s the curse on us,” Iran said. “That Mercer talks about.”

“The dust?” he asked.

“The killers that found Mercer in his sixteenth year, when they told him he couldn’t reverse time and bring things back to life again. So now all he can do is move along with life, going where it goes, to death. And the killers throw the rocks; it’s they who’re doing it. Still pursuing him. And all of us, actually. Did one of them cut your cheek, where it’s been bleeding?”

“Yes,” he said wanly.

“Will you go to bed now? If I set the mood organ to a 670 setting?”

“What does that bring about?” he asked.

“Long deserved peace,” Iran said.

He got to his feet, stood painfully, his face drowsy and confused, as if a legion of battles had ebbed and advanced there, over many years. And then, by degrees, he progressed along the route to the bedroom. “Okay,” he said. “Long deserved peace.” He stretched out on the bed, dust sifting from his clothes and hair onto the white sheets.

No need to turn on the mood organ, Iran realized as she pressed the button which made the windows of the bedroom opaque. The gray light of day disappeared.

On the bed Rick, after a moment, slept.

She stayed there for a time, keeping him in sight to be sure he wouldn’t wake up, wouldn’t spring to a sitting position in fear as he sometimes did at night. And then, presently, she returned to the kitchen, reseated herself at the kitchen table.

Next to her the electric toad flopped and rustled in its box; she wondered what it “ate,” and what repairs on it would run. Artificial flies, she decided.

Opening the phone book, she looked in the yellow pages under
animal accessories, electric;
she dialed and when the saleswoman answered, said, “I’d like to order one pound of artificial flies that really fly around and buzz, please.”

“Is it for an electric turtle, ma’am?”

“A toad,” she said.

“Then I suggest our mixed assortment of artificial crawling and flying bugs of all types including—”

“The flies will do,” Iran said. “Will you deliver? I don’t want to leave my apartment; my husband’s asleep and I want to be sure he’s all right.”

The clerk said, “For a toad I’d suggest also a perpetually renewing puddle, unless it’s a horned toad, in which case there’s a kit containing sand, multicolored pebbles, and bits of organic debris. And if you’re going to be putting it through its feed cycle regularly, I suggest you let our service department make a periodic tongue adjustment. In a toad that’s vital.”

“Fine,” Iran said. “I want it to work perfectly. My husband is devoted to it.” She gave her address and hung up.

And, feeling better, fixed herself at last a cup of black, hot coffee.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

P
HILIP
K. D
ICK
was born in Chicago in 1928. He attended the University of California at Berkeley, but dropped out rather than participate in mandatory ROTC training. Remaining in California, he began writing professionally in 1952, ultimately producing thirty-six novels and five short story collections. He won the 1962 Hugo Award for
The Man in the High Castle
, and the 1974 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for
Flow My Tears, the Policeman
Said. Dick died in 1982 of heart failure following a stroke.

BOOKS BY PHILIP K. DICK
AVAILABLE FROM VINTAGE BOOKS

Confessions of a Crap Artist

The Divine Invasion

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Galactic Pot-Healer

The Game-Players of Titan

The Man in the High Castle

Martian Time-Slip

A Maze of Death

Now Wait for Last Year

A Scanner Darkly

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer

Ubik

VALIS

We Can Build You

The World Jones Made

So that’s how the largest manufacturer of androids operates, Rick said to himself. Devious, and in a manner he had never encountered before. A weird and convoluted new personality type; no wonder law enforcement agencies were having trouble with the Nexus-6.

The Nexus-6. He had now come up against it. Rachael, he realized;
she must be a Nexus-6.
I’m seeing one of them for the first time. And they damn near did it; they came awfully close to undermining the Voight-Kampff scale, the only method we have for detecting them. The Rosen Association does a good job—makes a good try, anyhow—at protecting its products.

And I have to face six more of them, he reflected. Before I’m finished.

He would earn the bounty money. Every cent.