EIGHT

After parking the departments speedy beefed-up hovercar on the roof of the San Francisco Hall of Justice on Lombard Street, bounty hunter Rick Deckard, briefcase in hand, descended to Harry Bryant's office.

"You're back awfully soon," his superior said, leaning back in his chair and taking a pinch of Specific No. 1 snuff.

"I got what you sent me for." Rick seated himself facing the desk. He set his briefcase down. I'm tired, he realized. It had begun to hit him, now that he had gotten back; he wondered if he would be able to recoup enough for the job ahead. "How's Dave?" he asked. "Well enough for me to go talk to him? I want to before I tackle the first of the andys."

Bryant said, "You'll be trying for Polokov first. The one that lasered Dave. Best to get him right out of it, since he knows we've got him listed." "Before I talk to Dave?" Bryant reached for a sheet of onionskin paper, a blurred third or fourth carbon. "Polokov has

taken a job with the city as a trash collector, a scavenger."

"Don't only specials do that kind of work?"

"Polokov is mimicking a special, an anthead. Very deteriorated - or so he pretends to be. That's what suckered Dave; Polokov apparently looks and acts so much like an anthead that Dave forgot. Are you sure about the Voigt-Kampff scale now? You're absolutely certain, from what happened up in Seattle, that - "

"I am," Rick said shortly. He did not amplify.

Bryant said, "I'll take your word for it. But there can't be even one slip-up."

"There never could be in andy hunting. This is no different."

"The Nexus-6 is different."

"I already found my first one," Rick 'said. "And Dave found two. Three, if you count Polokov. Okay, I'll retire Polokov today, and then maybe tonight or tomorrow talk to Dave." He reached for the blurred carbon, the poop sheet on the android Polokov.

"One more item," Bryant said. "A Soviet cop, from the W.P.O., is on his way here. While you were in Seattle I got a call from him; he's aboard an Aeroflot rocket that'll touch down at the public field, here, in about an hour. Sandor Kadalyi, his name is."

"What's he want?" Rarely if ever did W.P.O. cops show up in San Francisco.

"W.P.O. is enough interested in the new Nexus-6 types that they want a man of theirs to be with you. An observer and also, if he can, he'll assist you. It's for you to decide when and if he can be of value. But I've already given him permission to tag along."

"What about the bounty?" Rick said.

"You won't have to split it," Bryant said, and smiled creakily.

"I just wouldn't regard it as financially fair." He had absolutely no intention of sharing his winnings with a thug from W.P.O. He studied the poop sheet on Polokov; it gave a description of the man or rather the andy - and his current address and place of business: The Bay Area Scavengers Company with offices on Geary.

"Want to wait on the Polokov retirement until the Soviet cop gets here to help you?" Bryant asked. Rick bristled. "I've always worked alone. Of course, it's your decision - I'll do whatever you say. But I'd just as soon tackle Polokov right now, without waiting for Kadalyi to hit town."

"You go ahead on your own," Bryant decided. "And then on the next one, which'll be a Miss Luba Luft - you have the sheet there on her, too - you can bring in Kadalyi."

Having stuffed the onionskin carbons in his briefcase, Rick left his superior's office and ascended once more to the roof and his parked hovercar. And now let's visit Mr. Polokov, he said to himself. He patted his laser tube.

For his first try at the android Polokov, Rick stopped off at the offices of the Bay Area Scavengers Company.

"I'm looking for an employee of yours," he said to the severe, gray-haired switchboard woman. The scavengers' building impressed him; large and modern, it held a good number of high-cllass purely office employees. The deep-pile carpets, the expensive genuine wood desks, reminded him that garbage collecting and trash disposal had, since the war, become one of Earth's important industries. The entire planet had begun to disintegrate into junk, and to keep the planet habitable for the remaining population the junk had to be hauled away occasionally . . . or, as Buster Friendly liked to declare, Earth would die under a layer - not of radioactive dust - but of kipple.

"Mr. Ackers," the switchboard woman informed him. "He's the personnel manager." She pointed to an impressive but imitation oak desk at which sat a prissy, tiny, bespectacled individual, merged with his plethora of paperwork.

Rick presented his police ID. "Where's your employee Polokov right now? At his job or at home?"

After reluctantly consulting his records Mr. Ackers said, "Polokov ought to be at work. Flattening hovercars at our Daly City plant and dumping them into the Bay. However - " The personnel manager consulted a further document, then picked up his vidphone and made an inside call to someone else in the building. "He's not, then," he said, terminating the call; hanging up he said to Rick, "Polokov didn't show up for work today. No explanation. What's he done, officer? "

"If he should show up," Rick said, "don't tell him I here asking about him. You understand?" "Yes, I understand," Ackers said sulkily, as if his deep schooling in police matters had been derided.

In the department's beefed-up hovercar Rick next flew to Polokov's apartment building in the Tenderloin. We'll never get him, he told himself. They - Bryant and Holden - waited too long. Instead of sending me to Seattle, Bryant should have sicced me on Polokov - better still last night, as soon as Dave Holden got his.

What a grimy place, he observed as he walked across the roof to the elevator. Abandoned animal pens, encrusted with months of dust. And, in one cage, a no longer functioning false animal, a chicken. By elevator he descended to Polokov's floor, found the hall limit, like a subterranean cave. Using his police A-powered sealed-beam light he illuminated the hall and once again glanced over the onionskin carbon. The Voigt-Kampff test had been administered to Polokov; that part could be bypassed, and he could go directly to the task of destroying the android.

Best to get him from out here, he decided. Setting down his weapons kit he fumbled it open, got out a nondirectional Penfield wave transmitter; he punched the key for catalepsy, himself protected against the mood emanation by means of a counterwave broadcast through the transmitter's metal hull directed to him alone.

They're now all frozen stiff, he said to himself as he shut off the transmitter. Everyone, human and andy alike, in the vicinity. No risk to me; all I have to do is walk in and laser him. Assuming, of course, that he's in his apartment, which isn't likely.

Using an infinity key, which anayzed and opened all forms of locks known, he entered Polokov's apartment, laser beam in hand.

No Polokov. Only semi-ruined furniture, a place of kipple and decay. In fact no personal articles: what greeted him consisted of unclaimed debris which Polokov had inherited when he took the apartment and which in leaving he had abandoned to the next - if any - tenant.

I knew it, he said to himself. Well, there goes the first thousand dollars bounty; probably skipped all the way to the Antarctic Circle. Out of my jurisdiction; another bounty hunter from another police department will retire Polokov and claim the money. On, I suppose, to the andys who haven't been warned, as was Polokov. On to Luba Luft.

Back again on the roof in his hovercar he reported by phone to Harry Bryant. "No luck on Polokov. Left probably right after he lasered Dave." He inspected his wristwatch. "Want me to pick up Kadalyi at the field? It'll save time and I'm eager to get started on Miss Luft." He already had the poop sheet on her laid out before him, had begun a thorough study of it.

"Good idea," Bryant said, "except that Mr. Kadalyi is already here; his Aeroflot ship - as usual, he says - arrived early. Just a moment." An invisible conference. "He'll fly over and meet you where you are now," Bryant said, returning to the screen. "Meanwhile read up on Miss Luft."

"An opera singer. Allegedly from Germany. At present attached to the San Francisco Opera Company." He nodded in reflexive agreement, mind on the poop sheet. "Must have a good voice to make connections so fast. Okay, I'll wait here for Kadalyi." He gave Bryant his location and rang off.

I'll pose as an opera fan, Rick decided as he read further. I particularly would like to see her as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni. In my personal collection I have tapes by such oldtime greats as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Lotte Lehmann and Lisa Della Casa; that'll give us something to discuss while I set up my Voigt-Kampff equipment.

His car phone buzzed. He picked up the receiver. The police operator said, "Mr. Deckard, a call for Von from Seattle; Mr. Bryant said to put it through to you. From the Rosen Association."

"Okay," Rick said, and waited. What do they want? he wondered. As far as he could discern, the Rosens had already proven to be bad news. And undoubtedly would continue so, whatever they intended.

Rachel Rosen's face appeared on the tiny screen. "Hello, Officer Deckard." Her tone seemed placating; that caught his attention. "Are you busy right now or can I talk to you?"

"Go ahead," he said.

"We of the association have been discussing your situation regarding the escaped Nexus-6 types and knowing them as we do we feel that you'll have better luck if one of us works in conjunction with you."

"By doing what?"

"Well, by one of us coming along with you. When you go out looking for them."

"Why? What would you add?"

Rachael said, "The Nexus-6s would be wiry at being approached by a human. But if another Nexus-6 made the contact - "

You specifically mean yourself."

"Yes." She nodded, her face sober.

"I've got too much help already."

"But I really think you need me."

"I doubt it. I'll think it over and call you back." At some distant, unspecified future time, he said to himself. Or more likely never. That's all I need: Rachael Rosen popping up through the dust at every step.

"You don't really mean it," Rachael said. "You'll never call me. You don't realize how agile an illegal escaped Nexus-6 is, how impossible it'll be for you. We feel we owe you this because of you know. What we did."

"I'll take it under advisement." He started to hang up.

"Without me," Rachael said, "one of them will get you before you can get it."

"Good-by," he said and hung up. What kind of world is it, he asked himself, when an android phones up a bounty hunter and offers him assistance? He rang the police operator back. "Don't put any more calls through to me from Seattle," he said.

"Yes, Mr. Deckard. Has Mr. Kadalyi reached you, yet?"

"I'm still waiting. And he had better hurry because I'm not going to be here long." Again he hung up.

As he resumed reading the poop sheet on Luba Luft a hovercar taxi spun down to land on the roof a few yards off. From it a red-faced, cherubic-looking man, evidently in his mid-fifties, wearing a heavy and impressive Russian-style greatcoat, stepped and, smiling, his hand extended, approached Rick's car.

"Mr. Deckard?" the man asked with a Slavic accent. "The bounty hunter for the San Francisco Police Department?" The empty taxi rose, and the Russian watched it go, absently. "I'm Sandor Kadalyi," the man said, and opened the car door to squeeze in beside Rick.

As he shook hands with Kadalyi, Rick noticed that the W.P.O. representative carried an unusual type of laser tube, a subform which he had never seen before. "Oh, this?" Kadalyi said. "Interesting, isn't it?" He tugged it from his belt holster. "I got this on Mars." "I thought I knew every handgun made," Rick said. "Even those manufactured at and for use in the colonies."

"We made this ourselves," Kadalyi said, beaming like a Slavic Santa, his ruddy face inscribed with pride. "You like it? What is different about it, functionally, is - here, take it." He passed the gun over to Rick, who inspected it expertly, by way of years of experience.

"How does it differ functionally?" Rick asked. He couldn't tell. "Press the trigger." Aiming upward, out the window of the car, Rick squeezed the trigger of the weapon. Nothing happened; no beam emerged. Puzzled, he turned to Kadalyi.

"The triggering circuit," Kadalyi said cheerfully, "isn't attached. It remains with me. You see?" He opened his hand, revealed a tiny unit. "And I can also direct it, within certain limits. Irrespective of where it's aimed."

"You're not Polokov, you're Kadalyi," Rick said. "Don't you mean that the other way around? You're a bit confused." "I mean you're Polokov, the android; you're not from the Soviet police." Rick, with his toe, pressed the emergency button on the floor of his car. "Why won't my laser tube fire?" Kadalyi-Polokov said, switching on and off the miniaturized triggering and aiming device which he held in the palm of his hand. "A sine wave," Rick said. "That phases out laser emanation and spreads the beam into ordinary light."

"Then I'll have to break your pencil neck." The android dropped the device and, with a snarl, grabbed with both hands for Rick's throat.

As the android's hands sank into his throat Rick fired his regulation issue old-style pistol from its shoulder holster; the .38 magnum slug struck the android in the head and its brain box burst. The Nexus-6 unit which operated it blew into pieces, a raging, mad wind which carried throughout the car. Bits of it, like the radioactive dust itself, whirled down on Rick. The retired remains of the android rocked back, collided with the car door, bounced off and struck heavily against him; he found himself struggling to shove the twitching remnants of the android away.

Shakily, he at last reached for the car phone, called in to the Hall of Justice. "Shall I make my report?" he said. "Tell Harry Bryant that I got Polokov."

"'You got Polokov.' He'll understand that, will he?"

"Yes," Rick said, and hung up. Christ that came close, he said to himself. I must have overreacted to Rachael Rosen's warning; I went the other way and it almost finished me. But I got Polokov, he said to himself. His adrenal gland, by degrees, ceased pumping its several secretions into his bloodstream; his heart slowed to normal, his breathing became less frantic. But he still shook. Anyhow I made myself a thousand dollars just now, he informed himself. So it was worth it. And I'm faster to react than Dave Holden. Of course, however, Dave's experience evidently prepared me; that has to be admitted. Dave had not had such warning.

Again picking up the phone he placed a call home to his apt, to Iran. Meanwhile he managed to light a cigarette; the shaking had begun to depart.

His wife's face, sodden with the six-hour self-accusatory depression which she had prophesied, manifested itself on the vidscreen. "Oh hello, Rick."

"What happened to the 594 I dialed for you before I left? Pleased acknowledgment of - "

"I redialed. As soon as you left. What do you want?" Her voice sank into a dreary drone of despond. "I'm so tired and I just have no hope left, of anything. Of our marriage - and you possibly getting killed by one of those andys. Is that what you want to tell me, Rick? That an andy got you?" In the background the racket of Buster Friendly boomed and brayed, eradicating her words; he saw her mouth moving but heard only the TV.

"Listen," he broke in. "Can you hear me? I'm on to something. A new type of android that apparently nobody can handle but me. I've retired one already, so that's a grand to start with. You know what we're going to have before I'm through?"

Iran stared at him sightlessly. "Oh," she said, nodding.

"I haven't said yet!" He could tell, now; her depression this time had become too vast for her even to hear him. For all intents he spoke into a vacuum. "I'll see you tonight," he finished bitterly and slammed the receiver down. Damn her, he said to himself. What good does it do, my risking my life? She doesn't care whether we own an ostrich or not; nothing penetrates. I wish I had gotten rid of her two years ago when we were considering splitting up. I can still do it, he reminded himself.

Broodingly, he leaned down, gathered together on the car floor his crumpled papers, including the info on Luba Luft. No support, he informed himself. Most androids I've known have more vitality and desire to live than my wife. She has nothing to give me.

That made him think of Rachael Rosen again. Her advice to me as to the Nexus-6 mentality, he realized, turned out to be correct. Assuming she doesn't want any of the bounty money, maybe I could use her.

The encounter with Kadalyi-Polokov had changed his ideas rather massively.

Snapping on his hovercar's engine he whisked nippity-nip up into the sky, heading toward the old War Memorial Opera House, where, according to Dive Holden's notes, he would find Luba Luft this time of the day.

He wondered, now, about her, too. Some female androids seemed to him pretty; he had found himself physically attracted by several, and it was an odd sensation, knowing intellectually that they were machines but emotionally reacting anyhow.

For example Rachael Rosen. No, he decided; she's too thin. No real development, especially in the bust. A figure like a child's, flat and tame. He could do better. How old did the poop sheet say Luba Luft was? As he drove he hauled out the now wrinkled notes, found her so-called "age." Twenty-eight, the sheet read. Judged by appearance, which, with andys, was the only useful standard.

It's a good thing I know something about opera, Rick reflected. That's another advantage I have over Dave; I'm more culturally oriented.

I'll try one more andy before I ask Rachael for help, he decided. If Miss Luft proves exceptionally hard-but he had an intuition she wouldn't. Polokov had been the rough one; the others, unaware that anyone actively hunted them, would crumble in succession, plugged like a file of ducks.

As he descended toward the ornate, expansive roof of the opera house he loudly sang a potpourri of arias, with pseudo-Italian words made up on the spot by himself; even without the Penfield mood organ at hand his spirits brightened into optimism. And into hungry, gleeful anticipation.

NINE

In the enormous whale-belly of steel and stone carved out to form the long-enduring old opera house Rick Deckard found an echoing, noisy, slightly miscontrived rehearsal taking place. As he entered he recognized the music: Mozart's The Magic Flute, the first act in its final scenes. The moor's slaves - in other words the chorus - had taken up their song a bar too soon and this had nullified the simple rhythm of the magic bells.

What a pleasure; he loved The Magic Flute. He seated himself in a dress circle scat (no one appeared to notice him) and made himself comfortable. Now Popageno in his fantastic pelt of bird feathers had joined Pamina to sing words which always brought tears to Rick's eyes, when and if he happened to think about it.

Könnte jedar brave Mann solche Glöckchen finden, eine Feinde würden dann ohne Muhe schwinden.

Well, Rick thought, in real life no such magic bells exist that make your enemy effortlessly disappear. Too bad. And Mozart, not long after writing The Magic Flute, had died in his thirties - of kidney disease. And had been buried in an unmarked paupers' grave.

Thinking this he wondered if Mozart had had any intuition that the future did not exist, that he had already used up his little time. Maybe I have, too, Rick thought as he watched the rehearsal move along. This rehearsal will end, the performance will end, the singers will die, eventually the last score of the music will be destroyed in one way or another; finally the name "Mozart" will vanish, the dust will have won. If not on this planet then another. We can evade it awhile. As the andys can evade me and exist a finite stretch longer. But I get them or some other bounty hunter gets them. In a way, he realized, I'm part of the form-destroying process of entropy. The Rosen Association creates and I unmake. Or anyhow so it must seem to them.

On the stage Papageno and Pamina engaged in a dialogue. He stopped his introspection to listen.

Papageno: "My child, what should we now say. Pamina: " - the truth. That's what we will say."

Leaning forward and peering, Rick studied Pamina in her heavy, convoluted robes, with her wimple trailing its veil about her shoulders and face. He reexamined the poop sheet, then leaned back, satisfied. I've now seen my third Nexus-6 android, he realized. This is Luba Luft. A little ironic, tile sentiment her role calls for. However vital, active, and nice-looking, an escaped android could hardly tell the truth; about itself, anyhow.

On tile stage Luba Luft sang, and he found himself surprised at the quality of her voice; it rated with that of the best, even that of notables in his collection of historic tapes. The Rosen Associaion built her well, he had to admit. And again he perceived himself sub specie aeternitatis, the formdestroyer called forth by what he heard and saw here. Perhaps the better she functions, the better a singer she is, the more I am needed. If the androids had remained substandard, like the ancient q-40s made by Derain Associates - there would be no problem and no need of my skill. I wonder when I should do it, he asked himself. As soon as possible, probably. At the end of the rehearsal when she goes to her dressing room.

At the end of the act the rehearsal ended temporarily. It would resume, the conductor said in English, French, and German, in an hour and a half. The conductor then departed; the musicians left their instruments and also left. Getting to his feet Rick made his way backstage to the dressing rooms; he followed the tail end of the cast, taking his time and thinking, It's better this way, getting it immediately over with. I'll spend as short a time talking to her and testing her as possible. As soon as I'm sure - but technically he could not be sure until after the test. Maybe Dave guessed wrong on her, he conjectured. I hope so. But he doubted it. Already, instinctively, his professional sense had responded. And he had yet to err . . . throughout years with the department.

Stopping a super he asked for Miss Luft's dressing room; the super, wearing makeup and the costume of an Egyptian spear carrier, pointed. Rick arrived at the indicated door, saw an ink-written note tacked to it reading MISS LUFT PRIVATE, and knocked.

"Come in."

He entered. The girl sat at her dressing table, a much-handled clothbound score open on her knees, marking here and there with a ball-point pen. She still wore her costume and makeup, except for the wimple; that she had set. down on its rack. "Yes?" she said, looking up. The stage makeup enlarged her eyes,, enormous and hazel they fixed on him and did not waver. "I am busy, as you can see." Her English contained no remnant of an accent.

Rick said, "You compare favorably to Schwarzkopf."

"Who are you?" Her tone held cold reserve - and that other cold, which he had encountered in so many androids. Always the same: great intellect, ability to accomplish much, but also this. He deplored it. And yet, without it, he could not track them down.

"I'm from the San Francisco Police Department," he said.

"Oh?" The huge and intense eyes did not flicker, did not respond. "What are you here about?" Her tone, oddly, seemed gracious.

Seating himself in a nearby chair he unzipped his briefcase. "I have been sent here to administer a standard personality-profile test to you. It won't take more than a few minutes."

"Is it necessary?" She gestured toward the big clothbound score. "I have a good deal I must do." Now she had begun to look apprehensive.

"It's necessary." He got out the Voigt-Kampff instruments, began setting them up.

"An IQ test?

"No. Empathy."

"I'll have to put on my glasses." She reached to open a drawer of her dressing table.

"If you can mark the score without your glasses you can take this test. I'll show you some pictures and ask you several questions. Meanwhile - " He got up and walked to her, and, bending, pressed the adhesive pad of sensitive grids against her deeply tinted check. "And this light," he said, adjusting the angle of the pencil beam, "and that's it."

"Do you think I'm an android? Is that it?" Her voice had faded almost to extinction. "I'm not an android. I haven't even been on Mars; I've never even seen an android!" Her elongated lashes shuddered involuntarily; he saw her trying to appear calm. "Do you have information that there's an android in the cast? I'd be glad to help you, and if I were an android would I be glad to help you?"

"An android," he said, "doesn't care what happens to any other android. That's one of the indications we look for."

"Then," Miss Luft said, "you must be an android."

That stopped him; he stared at her.

"Because," she continued, "Your job is to kill them, isn't it? You're what they call - " She tried to remember.

"A bounty hunter," Rick said. "But I'm not an android."

"This test you want to give me." Her voice, now, had begun to return. "Have you taken it?"

"Yes." He nodded. "A long, long time ago; when I first started with the department."

"Maybe that's a false memory. Don't androids sometimes go around with false memories?"

Rick said, "My superiors know about the test. It's mandatory.

"Maybe there was once a human who looked like you, and somewhere along the line you killed him and took his place. And your superiors don't know." She smiled. As if inviting him to agree.

"Let's get on with the test," he said, getting out the sheets of questions.

"I'll take the test," Luba Luft said, "if you'll take it first."

Again he stared at her, stopped in his tracks.

"Wouldn't that be more fair?" she asked. "Then I could be sure of you. I don't know; you seem so peculiar and hard and strange." She shivered, then smiled again. Hopefully.

"You wouldn't be able to administer the Voigt-Kampff test. It takes considerable experience. Now please listen carefully. These questions will deal with social situations which you might find yourself in; what I want from you is a statement of response, what you'd do. And I want the response as quickly as you can give it. One of the factors I'll record is the time lag, if any." He selected his initial question. "You're sitting watching TV and suddenly you discover a wasp crawling on your wrist." He checked with his watch, counting the seconds. And checked, too, with the twin dials.

"What's a wasp?" Luba Luft asked.

"A stinging bug that flies."

"Oh, how strange." Her immense eyes widened with child-like acceptance, as if he had revealed the cardinal mystery of creation. "Do they still exist? I've never seen one." "They died out because of the dust. Don't you really know what a wasp is? You must have been alive when there were wasps; that's only been - " "Tell me the German word." He tried to think of the German word for wasp but couldn't. "Your English is perfect," he said angrily. "My accent," she corrected, "is perfect. It has to be, for roles, for Purcell and Walton and Vaughn

Williams. But my vocabulary isn't very large." She glanced at him shyly.

"Wespe," he said, remembering the German word.

"Ach yes; eine Wespe." She laughed. "And what was the question? I forget already."

"Let's try another." Impossible now to get a meaningful response. "You are watching an old movie on TV, a movie from before the war. It shows a banquet in progress; the entrée" - he skipped over the first part of the question - "consists of boiled dog, stuffed with rice."

"Nobody would kill and cat a dog," Luba Luft said. "They're worth a fortune. But I guess it would be an imitation dog: ersatz. Right? But those are made of wires and motors; they can't be eaten."

"Before the war," he grated.

"I wasn't alive before the war."

"But you've seen old movies on TV."

"Was the movie made in the Philippines?"

"Why?"

"Because," Luba Luft said, "they used to cat boiled dog stuffed with rice in the Philippines. I remember reading that."

"But your response," he said. "I want your social, emotional, moral reaction."

"To the movie?" She pondered. "I'd turn it off and watch Buster Friendly."

"Why would you turn it off?"

"Well," she said hotly, "who the hell wants to watch an old movie set in the Philippines? What ever happened in the Philippines except the Bataan Death March, and would you want to watch that?" She glared at him indignantly. On his dials the needles swung in all directions.

After a pause he said carefully, "You rent a mountain cabin."

"Ja." She nodded. "Go on; I'm waiting."

"In an area still verdant."

"Pardon?" She cupped her ear. "I don't ever hear that term."

"Still trees and bushes growing. The cabin is rustic knotty pine with a huge fireplace. On the walls someone has hung old snaps, Currier and Ives prints, and above the fireplace a deer's head has been mounted, a full stag with developed horns. The people with you admire the decor of the cabin and - "

"I don't understand 'Currier' or 'Ives' or 'decor,"' Luba Luft said; she seemed to be struggling, however, to make out the terms. "Wait." She held up her hand earnestly. "With rice, like in the dog. Currier is what makes the rice currier rice. It's Curry in German."

He could not fathom, for the life of him, if Luba Luft's semantic fog had purpose. After consultation with himself he decided to try another question; what else could he do? "You're dating a man," he said, "and he asks you to visit his apartment. While you're there - "

"O nein," Luba broke in. "I wouldn't be there. That's easy to answer."

"That's not the question!"

"Did you get the wrong question? But I understand that; why is a question I understand the wrong one? Aren't I supposed to understand?" Nervously fluttering she rubbed her cheek and detached the adhesive disk. It dropped to the floor, skidded, and rolled under her dressing table. "Ach Gott," she muttered, bending to retrieve it. A ripping sound, that of cloth tearing. Her elaborate costume.

"I'll get it," he said, and lifted her aside; he knelt down, groped under the dressing table until his fingers located the disk. When he stood up he found himself looking into a laser tube. "Your questions," Luba Luft said in a crisp, formal voice, "began to do with sex. I thought they would finally. You're not from the police department; you're a sexual deviant." "You can look at my identification." He reached toward his coat pocket. His hand, he saw, had again begun to shake, as it had with Polokov. "If you reach in there," Luba Luft said, "I'll kill you." "You will anyhow." He wondered how it would have worked out if he had waited until Rachael Rosen could join him. Well, no use dwelling on that.

"Let me see some more of your questions." She held out her hand and, reluctantly, he passed her the sheets. "'In a magazine you come across a full-page color picture of a nude girl.' Well, that's one. 'You became pregnant by a man who has promised to marry you. The man goes off with another woman, your best friend; you get an abortion.' The pattern of your questioning is obvious. I'm going to call the police." Still holding the laser tube in his direction she crossed the room, picked tip the vidphone, dialed the operator. "Connect me with the San Francisco Police Department," she said. "I need a policeman."

"What you're doing," Rick said, with relief, "is the best idea possible." Yet it seemed strange to him that Luba had decided to do this; why didn't she simply kill him? Once the patrolman arrived her chance would disappear and it all would go his way.

She must think she's human, he decided. Obviously she doesn't know.

A few minutes later, during which Luba carefully kept the laser tube on him, a large harness bull arrived, in his archaic blue uniform with gun and star. "All right," he said at once to Luba. "Put that thing away." She set down the laser tube and he picked it up to examine it, to see if it carried a charge. "Now what's been going on here?" he asked her. Before she could answer he turned to Rick. "Who are you?" he demanded.

Luba Luft said, "He came into my dressing room; I've never seen him before in my life. He pretended to be taking a poll or something and he wanted to ask me questions; I thought it was all right and I said okay, and then he began asking me obscene questions."

"Let's see your identification," the harness bull said to Rick, his hand extended.

As he got out his ID Rick said, "I'm a bounty hunter with the department."

"I know all the bounty hunters," the harness bull said to Rick as he examined Rick's wallet. "With the S. F. Police Department? "

"My supervisor is Inspector Harry Bryant," Rick said. "I've taken over Dave Holden's list, now that Dave's in the hospital."

"As I say, I know all the bounty hunters," the harness bull said, "and I've never heard of you." He handed Rick's ID back to him.

"Call Inspector Bryant," Rick said.

"There isn't any Inspector Bryant," the harness bull said.

It came to Rick what was going on. "You're an android," he said to the harness bull. "Like Miss Luft." Going to the vidphone he picked up the receiver himself. "I'm going to call the department." He wondered how far be would get before the two androids stopped him.

"The number," the harness bull said, "is - "

"I know the number." Rick dialed, presently had the police switchboard operator. "Let me talk to Inspector Bryant," he said.

"Who is calling, please?"

"This is Rick Deckard." He stood waiting; meanwhile, off to one side, the harness bull was getting a statement from Luba Luft; neither paid any attention to him.

A pause and then Harry Bryant's face appeared on the vidscreen. "What's doing?" he asked Rick. "Some trouble," Rick said. "One of those on Dave's list managed to call in and get a so-called patrolman out here. I can't seem to prove to him who I am; he says he knows all the about hunters in the department and he's never heard of me." He added, "He hasn't heard of you either."

Bryant said, "Let me talk to him." "Inspector Bryant wants to talk to you." Rick held out the vidphone receiver. The harness bull ceased questioning Miss Luft and came over to take it.

"Officer Crams," the harness bull said briskly. A pause. "Hello?" He listened, said hello several times more, waited, then turned to Rick. "There's nobody on the line. And nobody on the screen." He pointed to the vidphone screen and Rick saw nothing on it.

Taking the receiver from the harness bull Rick said, "Mr. Bryant?" He listened, waited; nothing. "I'll dial again." He hung up, waited, then redialed the familiar number. The phone rang, but no one answered it; the phone rang on and on.

"Let me try," Officer Crams said, taking the receiver away from Rick. "You must have misdialed "He dialed. "The number is 842 - "

"I know the number," Rick said.

"Officer Crams calling in," the harness bull said into the Phone receiver. "Is there an Inspector Bryant connected with the department?" A short pause. "Well, what about a bounty hunter named Rick Deckard?" Again a pause. "You're sure? Could he have recently - oh, I see; okay, thanks. No, I have it under control." Officer Crams rang off, turned toward Rick.

"I had him on the line," Rick said. "I talked to him; he said he'd talk to you. It must be phone trouble; the connection must have been broken somewhere along the way. Didn't you see - Bryant's face showed on the screen and then it didn't." He felt bewildered.

Officer Crams said, "I have Miss Luft's statement, Deckard. So let's go down to the Hall of Justice so I can book you." "Okay," Rick said. To Luba Luft he said, "I'll be back in a short while. I'm still not finished testing

you."

"He's a deviant," Luba Luft said to Officer Crams. "He gives me the creeps." She shivered.

"What opera are you practicing to give?" Officer Crams asked her.

"The Magic Flute," Rick said.

"I didn't ask you; I asked her." The harness buff gave him a glance of dislike.

"I'm anxious to get to the Hall of Justice," Rick said. "This matter should be straightened out." He started toward the door of the dressing room, his briefcase gripped.

"I'll search you first." Officer Crams deftly frisked him, and came up with Rick's service pistol and laser tube. He appropriated both, after a moment of sniffing the muzzle of the pistol. "This has been fired recently," he said.

"I retired an andy just now," Rick said. "The remains are still in my car, up on the roof." "Okay," Officer Crams said. "We'll go up and have a look." As the two of them started from the dressing room, Miss Luft followed as far as the door. "He won't come back again, will he, Officer? I'm really afraid of him; he's so strange."

"If he's got the body of someone he killed upstairs in his car," Crams said, "he won't be coming back." He nudged Rick forward and, together, the two of them ascended by elevator to the roof of the opera house.

Opening the door of Rick's car, Officer Crams silently inspected the body of Polokov.

"An android," Rick said. "I was sent after him. He almost got me by pretending to be - "

"They'll take your statement at the Hall of Justice," Officer Crams interrupted. He nudged Rick over to his parked, plainly marked police car; there, by police radio, he put in a call for someone to come pick up Polokov. "Okay, Deckard," he said, then, ringing off. "Let's get started."

With the two of them aboard, the patrol car zummed up from the roof and headed south.

Something, Rick noticed, was not as it should be. Officer Crams had steered the car in the wrong direction.

"The Hall of justice," Rick said, "is north, on Lombard."

"That's the old Hall of Justice," Officer Crams said. "The new one is on Mission. That old building, it's disintegrating; it's a ruin. Nobody's used that for years. Has it been that long since you last got booked?"

"Take me there," Rick said. "To Lombard Street." He understood it all, now; saw what the androids, working together, had achieved. He would not live beyond this ride; for him it was the end, as it had almost been for Dave - and probably eventually would be.

"That girl's quite a looker," Officer Crams said. "Of course, with that costume you can't tell about her figure. But I'd say it's damn okay."

Rick said, "Admit to me that you're an android."

"Why? I'm not an android. What do you do, roam around killing people and telling yourself they're androids? I can see why Miss Luft was scared. It's a good thing for her that she called us."

"Then take me to the Hall of Justice, on Lombard."

"Like I said - "

"It'll take about three minutes," Rick said. "I want to see it. Every morning I check in for work, there; I want to see that it's been abandoned for years, as you say."

"Maybe you're an android," Officer Crams said. "With a false memory, like they give them. Had you thought of that?" He grinned frigidly as he continued to drive south.

Conscious of his defeat and failure, Rick settled back. And, helplessly, waited for what came next. Whatever the androids had planned, now that they had physical possession of him.

But I did get one of them, he told himself; I got Polokov. And Dave got two.

Hovering over Mission, Officer Crams's police car prepared to descend for its landing.

TEN

The Mission Street Hall of Justice building, onto the roof of which the hovercar descended, jutted up in a series of baroque, ornamented spires; complicated and modem, the handsome structure struck Rick Deckard as attractive - except for one aspect. He had never seen it before.

The police hovercar landed. And, a few minutes later, he found himself being booked.

"304," Officer Crams said to the sergeant at the high desk. "And 612.4 and let's see. Representing himself to be a peace officer."

"406.7 the desk sergeant said, filling out the forms; he wrote leisurely, in a slightly bored manner. Routine business, his posture and expression declared. Nothing of importance.

"Over here," Officer Crams said to Rick, leading him to a small white table at which a technician operated familiar equipment. "For your cephalic pattern," Crams said. "Identpurposes."

Rick said brusquely, "I know." In the old days, when he had been a harness bull himself, he had brought many suspects to a table like this. Like this, but not this particular table.

His cephatic pattern taken, he found himself being led off to an equally familiar room; reflexively he began assembling his valuables for transfer. It makes no sense, he said to himself. Who are these people? If this place has always existed, why didn't we know about it? And why don't they know about us? Two parallel police agencies, he said to himself; ours and this one. But never coming in contact - as far as I know until now. Or maybe they have, he thought. Maybe this isn't the first time. Hard to believe, he thought, that this wouldn't have happened long ago. If this really is a police apparatus, here; if it's what it asserts itself to be,

A man, not in uniform, detached himself from the spot at which he had been standing; he approached Rick Deckard at a measured, unruffled pace, gazing at him curiously. "What's this one?" he asked Officer Crams.

"Suspected homicide," Crams answered. "We have a body - we found it in his car - but he claims it's an android. We're checking it out, giving it a bone marrow analysis at the lab. And posing as a police officer, a bounty hunter. To gain access to a woman's dressing room in order to ask her suggestive questions. She doubted he was what he said he was and called us in." Stepping back, Crams said, "Do you want to finish up with him, sir? "

"All right." The senior police official, not in uniform, blue-eyed, with a narrow, flaring nose and inexpressive lips, eyed Rick, then reached for Rick's briefcase. "What do you have in here, Mr. Deckard? "

Rick said, "Material pertaining to the Voigt-KampfF personality test. I was testing a suspect when Officer Crams arrested me." He watched as the police official rummaged through the contents of the briefcase, examining each item. "The questions I asked Miss Luft are standard V-K questions, printed on the - "

"Do you know George Gleason and Phil Resch?" the police official asked.

"No," Rick said; neither name meant anything to him.

"They're the bounty hunters for Northern California. Both are attached to our department. Maybe you'll run into them while you're here. Are you an android, Mr. Deckard? The reason I ask is that several times in the past we've had escaped andys turn up posing as out-of-state bounty hunters here in pursuit of a suspect."

Rick said, "I'm not an android. You can administer the Voigt-Kampff test to me; I've taken it before and I don't mind taking it again. But I know what the results will be. Can I phone my wife?"

"You're allowed one call. Would you rather phone her than a lawyer?"

"I'll phone my wife," Rick said. "She can get a lawyer for me."

The plainclothes police officer handed him a fifty-cent piece and pointed. "There's the vidphone over there." He watched as Rick crossed the room to the phone. Then he returned to his examination of the contents of Rick's briefcase.

Inserting the coin, Rick dialed his home phone number. And stood for what seemed like an eternity, waiting.

A woman's face appeared on the vidscreen. "Hello," she said.

It was not Iran. He had never seen the woman before in his life.

He hung up, walked slowly back to the police officer.

"No luck?" the officer asked. "Well, you can make another call; we have a liberal policy in that regard. I can't offer you the opportunity of calling a bondsman because your offense is unbailable, at present. When you're arraigned, however - "

"I know," Rick said acridly. "I'm familiar with police procedure."

"Here's your briefcase," the officer said; he handed it back to Rick. "Come into my office I'd like to talk with you further." He started down a side hall, leading the way; Rick followed. Then, pausing and turning, the officer said, "My name is Garland." He held out his hand and they shook. Briefly. "Sit down," Garland said as he opened his office door and pushed behind a large uncluttered desk.

Rick seated himself facing the desk.

"This Voigt-Kampff test," Garland said, that you mentioned." He indicated Rick's briefcase. "All that material you carry." he filled and lit a pipe, puffed for a moment. "It's an analytical tool for detecting andys?"

"It's our basic test," Rick said. "The only one we currently employ. The only one capable of distinguishing the new Nexus-6 brain unit. You haven't heard of this test?"

"I've heard of several profile-analysis scales for use with androids. But not that one." He continued to study Rick intently, his face turgid; Rick could not fathom what Garland was thinking. "Those smudged carbon flimsies," Garland continued, "that you have there in your briefcase. Polokov, Miss Luft . . . your assignments. The next one is me."

Rick stared at him, then grabbed for the briefcase.

In a moment the carbons lay spread out before him. Garland had told the truth; Rick examined the sheet. Neither man - or rather neither he nor Garland - spoke for a time and then Garland cleared his throat, coughed nervously.

"It's an unpleasant sensation," he said. "To find yourself a bounty hunter's assignment all of a sudden. Or whatever it is you are, Deckard." He pressed a key on his desk intercom and said, "Send one of the bounty hunters in here; I don't care which one. Okay; thank you." He released the key. "Phil Resch will be in here a minute or so from now," he said to Rick. "I want to see his list before I proceed."

"You think I might be on his list?" Rick said.

"It's possible. We'll know pretty soon. Best to be sure about these critical matters. Best not to leave it to chance. This info sheet about me." He indicated the smudged carbon. "It doesn't list me as a police inspector; it inaccurately gives my occupation as insurance underwriter. Otherwise it's correct, as to physical description, age, personal habits, home address. Yes, it's me, all right. Look for yourself." He pushed the page to Rick, who picked it up and glanced over it.

The office door opened and a tall fleshless man with hard-etched features, wearing horn-rim glasses and a fuzzy Vandyke beard, appeared. Garland rose, indicating Rick.

"Phil Resch, Rick Deckard. You're both bounty hunters and it's probably time you met."

As he shook hands with Rick, Phil Resch said, "Which city are you attached to?"

Garland answered for Rick. "San Francisco. Here; take a look at his schedule. This one comes up next." He handed Phil Resch the sheet which Rick had been examining, that with his own description.

"Say, Gar," Phil Resch said. "This is you."

"There's more," Garland said. "He's also got Luba Luft the opera singer there on his list of retirement-assignments, and Polokov. Remember Polokov? He's now dead; this bounty hunter or android or whatever he is got him, and we running a bone marrow test at the lab. To see if there's any conceivable basis - "

"Polokov I've talked to," Phil Resch said. "That big Santa Claus from the Soviet police?" He pondered, plucking at his disarrayed beard. "I think it's a good idea to run a bone marrow test on him."

"Why do you say that?" Garland asked, clearly annoyed. "It's to remove any legal basis on which this man Deckard could claim he hadn't killed anyone; he only 'retired an android."'

Phil Resch said, "Polokov struck me as cold. Extremely cerebral and calculating; detached."

"A lot of the Soviet police are that way," Garland said, visibly nettled.

"Luba Luft I never met," Phil Resch said. "Although I've heard records she's made." To Rick he said, "Did you test her out? "

"I started to," Rick said. "But I couldn't get an accurate reading. And she called in a harness bull, which ended it."

"And Polokov?" Phil Resch asked.

"I never got a chance to test him either."

Phil Resch said, mostly to himself, "And I assume you haven't had an opportunity to test out Inspector Garland, here." "Of course not," Garland interjected, his face wrinkled with indignation; his words broke off, bitter

and sharp.

"What test do you use?" Phil Resch asked.

"The Voigt-Kampff scale."

"Don't know that particular one." Both Resch and Garland seemed deep in rapid, professional thought-but not in unison. "I've always said," he continued, "that the best place for an android would be with a big police organization such as W.P.O. Ever since I first met Polokov I've wanted to test him, but no pretext ever arose. It never would have, either . . . which is one of the values such a spot would have for an enterprising android."

Getting slowly to his feet Inspector Garland faced Phil Resch and said, "Have you wanted to test me, too?"

A discreet smiled traveled across Phil Resch's face; he started to answer, then shrugged. And remained silent. He did not seem afraid of his superior, despite Garland's palpable wrath.

"I don't think you understand the situation," Garland said. "This man - or android - Rick Deckard comes to us from a phantom, hallucinatory, nonexistent police agency allegedly operating out of the old departmental headquarters on Lombard. He's never heard of us and we've never heard of him yet ostensibly we're both working the same side of the street. He employs a test we've never heard of. The list he carries around isn't of androids; it's a list of human beings. He's already killed once - at least once. And if Miss Luft hadn't gotten to a phone he probably would have killed her and then eventually he would have come sniffing around after me."

"Hmm," Phil Resch said.

"Hmm," Garland mimicked, wrathfully. He looked, now, as if he bordered on apoplexy. "Is that all you have to say?"

The intercom came on and a female voice said, "Inspector Garland, the lab report on Mr. Polokov's corpse is ready." "I think we should hear it," Phil Resch said. Garland glanced at him, seething. Then he bent, pressed the key of the intercom. "Let's have it, Miss French." "The bone marrow test," Miss French said, "shows that Mr. Polokov was a humanoid robot. Do you want a detailed - " "No, that's enough." Garland settled back in his seat, grimly contemplating the far wall; he said

nothing to either Rick or Phil Resch.

Resch said, "What is the basis of your Voigt-Kampff test, Mr. Deckard?"

"Empathic response. In a variety of social situations. Mostly having to do with animals."

"Ours is probably simpler," Resch said. The reflex-arc response taking place in the upper ganglia of the spinal column requires several microseconds more in the humanoid robot than in a human nervous system." Reaching across Inspector Garland's desk he plucked a pad of paper toward him; with a ball-point pen he drew a sketch. "We use an audio signal or a light-flash. The subject presses a button and the elapsed time is measured. We try it a number of times, of course. Elapsed time varies in both the andy and the human. But by the time ten reactions have been measured, we believe we have a reliable clue. And, as in your case with Polokov, the bone marrow test backs us up."

An interval of silence passed and then Rick said, "You can test me out. I'm ready. Of course I'd like to test you, too. If you're willing."

"Naturally," Resch said. He was, however, studying Inspector Garland. "I've said for years," Resch murmured, that the Boneli Reflex-Arc Test should be applied routinely to police personnel the higher up the chain of command the better. Haven't I, Inspector?"

"That's right you have," Garland said. "And I've always opposed it. On the grounds that it would lower department morale."

"I think now," Rick said, "you're going to have to sit still for it. In view of your lab's report on Polokov."

ELEVEN

Garland said, "I guess so." He jabbed a finger at the bounty hunter Phil Resch. "But I'm warning you: you're not going to like the results of the tests."

"Do you know what they'll be?" Resch asked, with visible surprise; he did not look pleased.

"I know almost to a hair," Inspector Garland said.

"Okay." Resch nodded. "I'll go upstairs and get the Boneli gear." He strode to the door of the office, opened it, and disappeared out into the hall. "I'll be back in three or four minutes," he said to Rick. The door shut after him.

Reaching into the right-hand top drawer of his desk, Inspector Garland fumbled about, then brought forth a laser tube; he swiveled it until it pointed at Rick.

"That's not going to make any difference," Rick said. "Resch will have a postmortem run on me, the same as your lab ran on Polokov. And he'll still insist on a - what did you call it - Boneli Reflex-Arc Test on you and on himself."

The laser tube remained in its position, and then Inspector Garland said, "It was a bad day all day. Especially when I saw Officer Crams bringing you in; I had an intuition - that's why I intervened." By degrees he lowered the laser beam; he sat gripping it and then he shrugged and returned it to the desk drawer, locking the drawer and restoring the key to his pocket.

"What will tests on the three of us show?" Rick asked.

Garland said, "That damn fool Resch."

"He actually doesn't know?"

"He doesn't know; he doesn't suspect; he doesn't have the slightest idea. Otherwise he couldn't live out a life as a bounty hunter, a human occupation - hardly an android occupation." Garland gestured toward Rick's briefcase. "Those other carbons, the other suspects you're supposed to test and retire. I know them all." He paused, then said, "We all came here together on the same ship from Mars. Not Resch; he stayed behind another week, receiving the synthetic memory system." He was silent, then.

Or rather it was silent.

Rick said, "What'll he do when he finds out?"

"I don't have the foggiest idea," Garland said remotely. "It ought, from an abstract, intellectual viewpoint, to be interesting. He may kill me, kill himself; maybe you, too. He may kill everyone he can, human and android alike. I understand that such things happen, when there's been a synthetic memory system laid down. When one thinks it's human."

"So when you do that, you're taking a chance."

Garland said, "It's a chance anyway, breaking free and coming here to Earth, where we're not even considered animals. Where every worm and wood louse is considered more desirable than all of us put together." Irritably, Garland picked at his lower lip. "Your position would be better r if Phil Resch could pass the Boneli test, if it was just me. The results, that way, would be predictable; to Resch I'd just be another andy to retire as soon as possible. So you're not in a good position either, Deckard. Almost as bad, in fact, as I am. You know where I guessed wrong? I didn't know about Polokov. He must have come here earlier; obviously he came here earlier. In another group entirely no contact with ours. He was already entrenched in the W.P.O. when I arrived. I took a chance on the lab report, which I shouldn't have. Crams, of course, took the same chance."

"Polokov was almost my finish, too," Rick said.

"Yes, there was something about him. I don't think he could have been the same brain unit type as we; he must have been souped up or tinkered with - an altered structure, unfamiliar even to us. A good one, too. Almost good enough."

"When I phoned my apartment," Rick said, "why didn't I get my wife?"

"All our vidphone lines here are trapped. They recirculate the call to other offices within the building. This is a homeostatic enterprise we're operating here, Deckard. We're a closed loop, cut off from the rest of San Francisco. We know about them but they don't know about us. Sometimes an isolated person such as yourself wanders in here or, as in your case, is brought here - for our protection." He gestured convulsively toward the office door. "Here comes eager-beaver Phil Resch back with his handy dandy portable little test. Isn't he clever? He's going to destroy his own life and mine and possibly yours."

"You androids," Rick said, "don't exactly cover for each other in times of stress." Garland snapped, "I think you're right; it would seem we lack a specific talent you humans possess. I believe it's called empathy."

The office door opened; Phil Resch stood outlined, carrying a device which trailed wires. "Here we are," he said, closing the door after him; he seated himself, plugging the device into the electrical outlet.

Bringing out his right hand, Garland pointed at Resch. At once Resch - and also Rick Deckard rolled from their chairs and onto the floor; at the same time, Resch . aimed a laser tube and, as he fell, fired at Garland.

The laser beam, aimed with skill, based on years of training, bifurcated Inspector Garland's head. He slumped forward and, from his hand, his miniaturized laser beam rolled across the surface of his desk. The corpse teetered on its chair and then, like a sack of eggs, it slid to one side and crashed to the floor.

"It forgot," Resch said, rising to his feet, "that this is my job. I can almost foretell what an android is going to, do. I suppose you can, too." He put his laser beam away, bent, and, with curiosity, examined the body of his quondam superior. "What did it say to you while I was gone?"

"That he - it - was an android. And you - " Rick broke off, the conduits of his brain humming, calculating, and selecting; he altered what he had started to say. " - would detect it," he finished. "In a few more minutes."

"Anything else?"

"This building is android-infested."

Resch said introspectively, "That's going to make it hard for you and me to get out of here. Nominally I have the authority to leave any time I want, of course. And to take a prisoner with me." He listened; no sound came from beyond the office. "I guess they didn't hear anything. There's evidently no bug installed here, monitoring everything as there should be." Gingerly, he nudged the body of the android with the toe of his shoe. "It certainly is remarkable, the psionic ability you develop in this business; I knew before I opened the office door that he would take a shot at me. Frankly I'm surprised he didn't kill you while I was upstairs,"

"He almost did," Rick said. "He had a big utility-model laser beam on me part of the time. He was considering it. But it was you he was worried about, not me."

"The android flees," Resch said humorlessly, "where the bounty bunter pursues. You realize, don't you, that you're going to have to double back to the opera house and get Luba Luft before anyone here has a chance to warn her as to how this came out. Warn it, I should say. Do you think of them as 'it'? "

"I did at one time," Rick said. "When my conscience occasionally bothered me about the work I had to do; I protected myself by thinking of them that way but now I no longer find it necessary. All right, I'll head directly back to the opera house. Assuming you can get me out of here."

"Suppose we sit Garland up at his desk," Resch said; he dragged the corpse of the android back up into its chair, arranging its arms and legs so that its posture appeared reasonably natural - if no one looked closely. If no one came into the office. Pressing a key on the desk intercom, Phil Resch said, "Inspector Garland has asked that no calls be put through to him for the next half hour. He's involved in work that can't be interrupted."

"Yes, Mr. Resch."

Releasing the intercom key, Phil Resch said to Rick, "I'm going to handcuff you to me during the time we're still here in the building. Once we're airborne I'll naturally let you go." He produced a pair of cuffs, slapped one onto Rick's wrist and the other around his own. "Come on; let's get it over with." He squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and pushed open the office door.

Uniformed police stood or sat on every side, conducting their routine business of the day; none of them glanced up or paid any attention as Phil Resch led Rick across the lobby to the elevator.

"What I'm afraid of," Resch said as they waited for the elevator, "is that the Garland one had a dead man's throttle warning component built into it. But - " He shrugged. "I would have expected it to go off by now; otherwise it's not much good."

The elevator arrived; several police-like nondescript men and women disemelevatored, cracked off across the lobby on their several errands. They paid no attention to Rick or Phil Resch.

"Do you think your department will take me on?" Resch asked, as the elevator doors shut, closing the two of them inside; he punched the roof button and the elevator silently rose. "After all, as of now I'm out of a job. To say the least."

Guardedly, Rick said, "I - don't see why not. Except that we already have two bounty hunters." I've got to tell him, he said to himself. It's unethical and cruel not to. Mr. Resch, you're an android, he thought to himself. You got me out of this place and here's your reward; you're everything we jointly abominate. The essence of what we're committed to destroy.

"I can't get over it," Phil Resch said. "It doesn't seem possible. For three years I've been working under the direction of androids. Why didn't I suspect - I mean, enough to do something?"

"Maybe it isn't that long. Maybe they only recently infiltrated this building."

"They've been here all the time. Garland has been my superior from the start, throughout my three years."

"According to it," Rick said, "the bunch of them came to Earth together. And that wasn't as long ago as three years; it's only been a matter of months."

"Then at one time an authentic Garland existed," Phil Resch said. "And somewhere along the way got replaced." His sharklike lean face twisted and he struggled to understand. "Or - I've been impregnated with a false memory system. Maybe I only remember Garland over the whole time. But

-" His face, suffused now with growing torment, continued to twist and work spasmodically. "Only androids show up with false memory systems; it's been found ineffective in humans." The elevator ceased rising; its doors slid back, and there, spread out ahead of them, deserted except for empty parked vehicles, lay the police station's roof field.

"Here's my car," Phil Resch said, unlocking the door of a nearby hovercar and waving Rick rapidly inside; he himself got in behind the wheel and started up the motor. In a moment they had lifted into the sky and, turning north, headed back in the direction of the War Memorial Opera House. Preoccupied, Phil Resch drove by reflex; his progressively more gloomy train of thought continued to dominate his attention. "Listen, Deckard," he said suddenly. "After we retire Luba Luft I want you to - " His voice, husky and tormented, broke off. "You know. Give me the Boneli test or that empathy scale you have. To see about me."

"We can worry about that later," Rick said evasively "You don't want me to take it, do you?" Phil Resch glanced at him with acute comprehension. "I guess you know what the results will be; Garland must have told you something. Facts which I don't know."

Rick said, "It's going to be hard even for the two of us to take out Luba Luft; she's more than I could handle, anyhow. Let's keep our attention focused on that."

"It's not just false memory structures," Phil Resch said. "I own an animal; not a false one but the real thing. A squirrel. I love the squirrel, Deckard; every goddamn morning I feed it and change its papers - you know, clean up its cage - and then in the evening when I get off work I let it loose in my apt and it runs all over the place. It has a wheel in its cage; ever seen a squirrel running inside a wheel? It runs and runs, the wheel spins, but the squirrel stays in the same spot. Buffy seems to like it, though."

"I guess squirrels aren't too bright," Rick said.

They flew on, then, in silence.

TWELVE

At the opera house Rick Deckard and Phil Resch were informed that the rehearsal had ended. And Miss Luft had left.

"Did she say where she intended to go?" Phil Resch asked the stagehand, showing his police identification.

"Over to the museum." The stagehand studied the ID card. "She said she wanted to take in the exhibit of Edvard Munch that's there, now. It ends tomorrow."

And Luba Luft, Rick thought to himself, ends today.

As the two of them walked down the sidewalk to the museum, Phil Resch said, "What odds will you give? She's flown; we won't find her at the museum."

"Maybe," Rick said.

They arrived at the museum building, noted on which floor the Munch exhibit could be found, and ascended. Shortly, they wandered amid paintings and woodcuts. Many people had turned out for the exhibit, including a grammar school class; the shrill voice of the teacher penetrated all the rooms comprising the exhibit, and Rick thought, That's what you'd expect an andy to sound - and look like. Instead of like Rachael Rosen and Luba Luft. And - the man beside him. Or rather the thing beside him.

"Did you ever hear of an andy having a pet of any sort?" Phil Resch asked him.

For sonic obscure reason he felt the need to be brutally honest; perhaps he had already begun preparing himself for what lay ahead. "In two cases that I know of, andys owned and cared for animals. But it's rare. From what I've been able to learn, it generally fails; the andy is unable to keep the animal alive. Animals require an environment of warmth to flourish. Except for reptiles and insects."

"Would a squirrel need that? An atmosphere of love? Because Buffy is doing fine, as sleek as an otter. I groom and comb him every other day." At an oil painting Phil Resch halted, gazed intently. The painting showed a hairless, oppressed creature with a head like an inverted pear, its hands clapped in horror to its ears, its mouth open in a vast, soundless scream. Twisted ripples of the creature's torment, echoes of its cry, flooded out into the air surrounding it; the man or woman, whichever it was, had become contained by its own howl. It had covered its ears against its own sound. The creature stood on a bridge and no one else was present; the creature screamed in isolation. Cut off by - or despite - its outcry.

"He did a woodcut of this," Rick said, reading the card tacked below the painting.

"I think," Phil Resch said, "that this is how an andy must feet." He traced in the air the convolutions, visible in the picture, of the creature's cry. "I don't feel like that, so maybe I'm not an - " He broke off, as several persons strolled up to inspect the picture.

"There's Luba Luft." Rick pointed and Phil Resch halted his somber introspection and defense; the two of them walked at a measured pace toward her, taking their time as if nothing confronted them; as always it was vital to preserve the atmosphere of the commonplace. Other humans, having no knowledge of the presence of androids among them, had to be protected at all costs - even that of losing the quarry.

Holding a printed catalogue, Luba Luft, wearing shiny tapered pants and an illuminated gold vestlike top, stood absorbed in the picture before her: a drawing of a young girl, hands clasped together, seated on the edge of a bed, an expression of bewildered wonder and new, groping awe imprinted on the face.

"Want me to buy it for you?" Rick said to Luba Luft; he stood beside her, holding laxly onto her upper arm, informing her by his loose grip that he knew he had possession of her - he did not have to strain in an effort to detain her. On the other side of her Phil Resch put his hand on her shoulder and Rick saw the bulge of the laser tube. Phil Resch did not intend to take chances, not after the near miss with Inspector Garland.

"It's not for sale." Luba Luft glanced at him idly, then violently as she recognized him; her eyes faded and the color dimmed from her face, leaving it cadaverous, as if already starting to decay. As if life had in an instant retreated to some point far inside her, leaving the body to its automatic ruin. "I thought they arrested you. Do you mean they let you go?"

"Miss Luft," he said, "this is Mr. Resch. Phil Resch, this is the quite well-known opera singer Luba Luft." To Luba he said, "The harness bull that arrested me is an android. So was his superior. Do you know - did you know - an Inspector Garland? He told me that you all came here in one ship as a group."

"The police department which you called," Phil Resch said to her, "operating out of a building on Mission, is the organizing agency by which it would appear your group keeps in touch. They even feel confident enough to hire a human bounty hunter; evidently - "

"You?" Luba Luft said. "You're not human. No more than I am: you're an android, too."

An interval of silence passed and then Phil Resch said in a low but controlled voice, "Well, we'll deal with that at the proper time." To Rick he said, "Let's take her to my car."

One of them on each side of her they prodded her in the direction of the museum elevator. Luba Luft did not come willingly, but on the other hand she did not actively resist; seemingly she had become resigned. Rick had seen that before in androids, in crucial situations. The artificial life force animating them seemed to fail if pressed too far . . . at least in some of them. But not all.

And it could flare up again furiously.

Androids, however, had as he knew an inn-ate desire to remain inconspicuous. In the museum, with so many people roaming around, Luba Luft would tend to do nothing. The real encounter - for her probably the final one - would take place in the car, where no one else could see. Alone, with appalling abruptness, she could shed her inhibitions. He prepared himself - and did not think about Phil Resch. As Resch had said, it would be dealt with at a proper time.

At the end of the corridor near the elevators, a little store-like affair had been set up; it sold prints and art books, and Luba halted there, tarrying. "Listen," she said to Rick. Some of the color had returned to her face; once more she looked - at least briefly - alive. "Buy me a reproduction of that picture I was looking at when you found me. The one of the girt sitting on the bed."

After a pause Rick said to the clerk, a heavy-jowled, middle-aged woman with netted gray hair, "Do you have a print of Munch's Puberty?"

"Only in this book of his collected work," the clerk said, lifting down a handsome glossy volume. "Twent-five dollars."

"I'll take it." He reached for his wallet.

Phil Resch said, "My departmental budget could never in a million years be stretched - "

"My own money," Rick said; he handed the woman the bills and Luba the book. "Now let's get started down," he said to her and Phil Resch.

"It's very nice of you," Luba said as they entered the elevator. "There's something very strange and touching about humans. An android would never have done that." She glanced icily at Phil Resch. "It wouldn't have occurred to him; as he said, never in a million years." She continued to gaze at Resch, now with manifold hostility and aversion. "I really don't like androids. Ever since I got here from Mars my life has consisted of imitating the human, doing what she would do, acting as if I had the thoughts and impulses a human would have. Imitating, as far as I'm concerned, a superior life form."

To Phil Resch she said, "Isn't that how it's been with you, Resch? Trying to be - "

"I can't take this." Phil Resch dug into his coat, groped.

"No," Rick said; he grabbed at Phil Resch's hand; Resch retreated, eluding him. "The Boneli test," Rick said.

"It's admitted it's an android," Phil Resch said. "We don't have to wait."

"But to retire it," Rick said, "because it's needling you give me that." He struggled to pry the laser tube away from Phil Resch. The tube remained in Phil Resch's possession; Resch circled back within the cramped elevator, evading him, his attention on Luba Luft only. "Okay," Rick said. "Retire it; kill it now. Show it that it's right." He saw, then, that Resch meant to. "Wait- "

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

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

"You could have kept the book yourself," Resch said, when it had been done. "That cost you - "

"Do you think androids have souls?" Rick interrupted.

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

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

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

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

"You're sure I'm an android? Is that really what Garland said?"

"That's what Garland said."

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

Rick said, "I'm getting out of this business."

"And go into what?"

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

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

"They can use androids. Much better if andys do it. I can't any more; I've had enough. She was a wonderful singer. The planet could have used her. This is insane."

"This is necessary. Remember: they killed humans in order 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 realty 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 on 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 fie 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.

Rick said, "What - should I do?"

"It's sex," Phil Resch said.

"Sex?

"Because she - it - was physically attractive. Hasn't that ever happened to you before?" Phil Resch laughed. "We were taught that it constitutes a prime problem in bounty hunting. Don't you know, Deckard, that in the colonies they have android mistresses?"

"It's illegal," Rick said, knowing the law about that.

"Sure it's illegal. But most variations in sex are illegal. But people do it anvhow."

"What about - not sex - but love?"

"Love is another name for sex."

"Like love of country," Rick said. "Love of music."

"If it's love toward a woman or an android imitation, it's sex. Wake up and face yourself, Deckard. You wanted to go to bed with a female type of android - nothing more, nothing less. I felt that way, on one occasion. When I had just started bounty hunting. Don't let it get you down; you'll heal. What's happened is that you've got your order reversed. Don't kill her - or be present when she's killed - and then feel physically attracted. Do it the other way."

Rick stared at him. "Go to bed with her first - "

" - and then kill her," Phil Resch said succinctly. His grainy, hardened smile remained.

You're a good bounty hunter, Rick realized. Your attitude proves it. But am I?

Suddenly, for the first time in his life, he had begun to wonder.