Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

4

Maybe I’m worried, Rick Deckard conjectured, that what happened to Dave will happen to me. An andy smart enough to laser him could probably take me, too. But that didn’t seem to be it.

“I see you brought the poop sheet on that new brain unit,” Inspector Bryant said, hanging up the vidphone.

Rick said, “Yeah, I heard about it on the grapevine. How many andys are involved and how far did Dave get?”

“Eight to start with,” Bryant said, consulting his clipboard. “Dave got the first two.”

“And the remaining six are here in Northern California?”

“As far as we know. Dave thinks so. That was him I was talking to. I have his notes; they were in his desk. He says all he knows is here.” Bryant tapped the bundle of notepaper. So far he did not seem inclined to pass the notes on to Rick; for some reason he continued to leaf through them himself, frowning and working his tongue in and around the fringes of his mouth.

“I have nothing on I my agenda,” Rick offered. “I’m ready to take over in Dave’s place.”

Bryant said thoughtfully, “Dave used the Voigt-Kampff Altered Scale in testing out the individuals he suspected. You realize—you ought to, anyhow—that this test isn’t specific for the new brain units. No test is; the Voigt scale, altered three years ago by Kampff, is all we have.” He paused, pondering. “Dave considered it accurate. Maybe it is. But I would suggest this, before you take out after these six.” Again he tapped the pile of notes. “Fly to Seattle and talk with the Rosen people. Have them supply you a representative sampling of types employing the new Nexus-6 unit.”

“And put them through the Voigt-Kampff,” Rick said.

“It sounds so easy,” Bryant said, half to himself.

“Pardon?”

Bryant said, “I think I’ll talk to the Rosen organization myself, while you’re on your way.” He eyed Rick, then, silently. Finally he grunted, gnawed on a fingernail, and eventually decided on what he wanted to say. “I’m going to discuss with them the possibility of including several humans, as well as their new androids. But you won’t know. It’ll be my decision, in conjunction with the manufacturers. It should be set up by the time you get there.” He abruptly pointed at Rick, his face severe. “This is the first time you’ll be acting as senior bounty bunter. Dave knows a lot; he’s got years of experience behind him.”

“So have I,” Rick said tensely.

“You’ve handled assignments devolving to you from Dave’s schedule; he’s always decided exactly which ones to turn over to you and which not to. But now you’ve got six that he intended to retire himself—one of which managed to get him first. This one.” Bryant turned the notes around so that Rick could see. “Max Polokov,” Bryant said. “That’s what it calls itself, anyhow. Assuming Dave was right. Everything is based on that assumption, this entire list. And yet the Voigt-Kampff Altered Scale has only been administered to the first three, the two Dave retired and then Polokov. It was while Dave was administering the test; that’s when Polokov lasered him.”

“Which proves that Dave was right,” Rick said. Otherwise he would not have been lasered; Polokov would have no motive.

“You get started for Seattle,” Bryant said. “Don’t tell them first; I’ll handle it. Listen.” He rose to his feet, soberly confronted Rick. “When you run the Voigt-Kampff scale up there, if one of the humans fails to pass it—”

“That can’t happen,” Rick said.

“One day, a few weeks ago, I talked with Dave about exactly that. He had been thinking along the same lines. I had a memo from the Soviet police, W.P.O. itself, circulated throughout Earth plus the colonies. A group of psychiatrists in Leningrad have approached W.P.O. with the following proposition. They want the latest and most accurate personality profile analytical tools used in determining the presence of an android—in other words the Voigt-Kampff scaleapplied to a carefully selected group of schizoid and schizophrenic human patients. Those, specifically, which reveal what’s called a ‘flattening of affect.’ You’ve heard of that.”

Rick said, “That’s specifically what the scale measures.”

“Then you understand what they’re worried about.”

“This problem has always existed. Since we first encountered androids posing as humans. The consensus of police opinion is known to you in Lurie Kampff s article, written eight years ago. Role-taking Blockage in the Undeteriorated Schizophrenic. Kampff compared the diminished emphatic faculty found in human mental patients and a superficially similar but basically—”

“The Leningrad psychiatrists,” Bryant broke in brusquely, “think that a small class of human beings could not pass the Voigt-Kampff scale. If you tested them in line with police work you’d assess them as humanoid robots. You’d be wrong, but by then they’d be dead.” He was silent, now, waiting for Rick’s answer.

“But these individuals,” Rick said, “would all be—”

“They’d be in institutions,” Bryant agreed. “They couldn’t conceivably function in the outside world; they certainly couldn’t go undetected as advanced psychotics—unless of course their breakdown had come recently and suddenly and no one had gotten around to noticing. But this could happen.”

“A million to one odds,” Rick said. But he saw the point.

“What worried Dave,” Bryant continued, “is this appearance of the new Nexus-6 advance type. The Rosen organization assured us, as you know, that a Nexus-6 could be delineated by standard profile tests. We took their word for it. Now we’re forced, as we knew we would be, to determine it on our own. That’s what you’ll be doing in Seattle. You understand, don’t you that this could go wrong either way. If you can’t pick out all the humanoid robots, then we have no reliable analytical tool and we’ll never find the ones who’re already escaping. If your scale factors out a human subject, identifies him as android—” Bryant beamed at him icily. “It would be awkward, although no one, absolutely not the Rosen people, will make the news public. Actually we’ll be able to sit on it indefinitely, although of course we’ll have to inform W.P.O. and they in turn will notify Leningrad. Eventually it’ll pop out of the ‘papes at us. But by then we may have developed a better scale.” He picked the phone up. “You want to get started? Use a department car and fuel yourself at our pumps.”

Standing, Rick said, “Can I take Dave Holden’s notes with me? I want to read them along the way.”

Bryant said, “Let’s wait until you’ve tried out your scale in Seattle.” His tone was interestingly merciless, and Rick Deckard noted it.

When he landed the police department hovercar on the roof of the Rosen Association Building in Seattle he found a young woman waiting for him. Black-haired and slender, wearing the new huge dust-filtering glasses, she approached his car, her hands deep in the pockets of her brightly striped long coat. She had, on her sharply defined small face, an expression of sullen distaste.

“What’s the matter?” Rick said as he stepped from the parked car.

The girl said, obliquely, “Oh, I don’t know. Something about the way we got talked to on the phone. It doesn’t matter.” Abruptly she held out her hand; he reflexively took it. “I’m Rachael Rosen. I guess you’re Mr. Deckard.”

“This is not my idea,” he said.

“Yes, Inspector Bryant told us that. But you’re officially the San Francisco Police Department, and it doesn’t believe our unit is to the public benefit.” She eyed him from beneath long black lashes, probably artificial.

Rick said, “A humanoid robot is like any other machine; it can fluctuate between being a benefit and a hazard very rapidly. As a benefit it’s not our problem.”

“But as a hazard,” Rachael Rosen said, “then you come in. Is it true, Mr. Deckard, that you’re a bounty hunter?”

He shrugged, with reluctance, nodded.

“You have no difficulty viewing an android as inert,” the girl said. “So you can ‘retire’ it, as they say.”

“Do you have the group selected out for me?” he said. “I’d like to—” He broke off. Because, all at once, he had seen their animals.

A powerful corporation, he realized, would of course be able to afford this. In the back of his mind, evidently, he had anticipated such a collection; it was not surprise that he felt but more a sort of yearning. He quietly walked away from the girl, toward the closest pen. Already he could smell them, the several scents of the creatures standing or sitting, or, in the case of what appeared to be a raccoon, asleep.

Never in his life had he personally seen a raccoon. He knew the animal only from 3-D films shown on television. For some reason the dust had struck that species almost as hard as it had the birds—of which almost none survived, now. In an automatic response he brought out his much—thumbed Sidney’s and looked up raccoon with all the sublistings. The list prices, naturally, appeared in italics; like Percheron horses, none existed on the market for sale at any figure. Sidney’s catalogue simply listed the price at which the last transaction involving a raccoon had taken place. It was astronomical.

“His name is Bill,” the girl said from behind him. “Bill the raccoon. We acquired him just last year from a subsidiary corporation.” She pointed past him and he then perceived the armed company guards, standing with their machine guns, the rapid-fire little light Skoda issue; the eyes of the guards had been fastened on him since his car landed. And, he thought, my car is clearly marked as a police vehicle.

“A major manufacturer of androids,” he said thoughtfully, “invests its surplus capital on living animals.”

“Look at the owl,” Rachael Rosen said. “Here, I’ll wake it up for you.” She started toward a small, distant cage, in the center of which jutted up a branching dead tree.

There are no owls, he started to say. Or so we’ve been told. Sidney’s, he thought; they list it in their catalogue as extinct: the tiny, precise type, the E, again and again throughout the catalogue. As the girl walked ahead of him he checked to see, and he was right. Sidney’s never makes a mistake, he said to himself. We know that, too. What else can we depend on?

“It’s artificial,” he said, with sudden realization; his disappointment welled up keen and intense.

“No.” She smiled and he saw that she had small even teeth, as white as her eyes and hair were black.

“But Sidney’s listing,” he said, trying to show her the catalogue. To prove it to her.

The girl said, “We don’t buy from Sidney’s or from any animal dealer. All our purchases are from private parties and the prices we pay aren’t reported.” She added, “Also we have our own naturalists; they’re now working up in Canada. There’s still a good deal of forest left, comparatively speaking, anyhow. Enough for small animals and once in a while a bird.”

For a long time he stood gazing at the owl, who dozed on its perch. A thousand thoughts came into his mind, thoughts about the war, about the days when owls had fallen from the sky; he remembered how in his childhood it had been discovered that species upon species had become extinct and how the ‘papes had reported it each day—foxes one morning, badgers the next, until people had stopped reading the perpetual animal obits.

He thought, too, about his need for a real animal; within him an actual hatred once more manifested itself toward his electric sheep, which he had to tend, had to care about, as if it lived. The tyranny of an object, he thought. It doesn’t know I exist. Like the androids, it had no ability to appreciate the existence of another. He had never thought of this before, the similarity between an electric animal and an andy. The electric animal, he pondered, could be considered a subform of the other, a kind of vastly inferior robot. Or, conversely, the android could be regarded as a highly developed, evolved version of the ersatz animal. Both viewpoints repelled him.

“If you sold your owl,” he said to the girl Rachael Rosen, “how much would you want for it, and how much of that down?”

“We would never sell our owl.” She scrutinized him with a mixture of pleasure and pity; or so he read her expression. “And even if we sold it, you couldn’t possibly pay the price. What kind of animal do you have at home?”

“A sheep,” he said. “A black-faced Suffolk ewe.”

“Well, then you should be happy.”

“I’m happy,” he answered. “It’s just that I always wanted an owl, even back before they all dropped dead.” He corrected himself. “All but yours.”

Rachael said, “Our present crash program and overall planning call for us to obtain an additional owl which can nate with Scrappy.” She indicated the owl dozing on its perch; it had briefly opened both eyes, yellow slits which healed over as the owl settled back down to resume its slumber. Its chest rose conspicuously and fell, as if the owl, in its hypnagogic state, had sighed.

Breaking away from the sight—k made absolute bitterness blend throughout his prior reaction of awe and yearninghe said, “I’d like to test out the selection, now. Can we go downstairs? “

“My uncle took the call from your superior and by now he probably has—”

“You’re a family?” Rick broke in. “A corporation this large is a family affair?”

Continuing her sentence, Rachael said, “Uncle Eldon should have an android group and a control group set up by now. So let’s go.” She strode toward the elevator, hands again thrust violently in the pockets of her coat; she did not look back, and he hesitated for a moment, feeling annoyance, before he at last trailed after her.

“What have you got against me?” he asked her as together they descended.

She reflected, as if up to now she hadn’t known. “Well,” she said, “you, a little police department employee, are in a unique position. Know what I mean?” She gave him a malice-filled sidelong glance.

“How much of your current output,” he asked, “consists of types equipped with the Nexus-6?”

“All,” Rachael said.

“I’m sure the Voigt-Kampff scale will work with them.”

“And if it doesn’t we’ll have to withdraw all Nexus-6 types from the market.” Her black eyes flamed up; she glowered at him as the elevator ceased descending and its doors slid back. “Because you police departments can’t do an adequate job in the simple matter of detecting the minuscule number of Nexus-6s who balk—”

A man, dapper and lean and elderly, approached them, hand extended; on his face a harried expression showed, as if everything recently had begun happening too fast. “I’m Eldon Rosen,” he explained to Rick as they shook hands. “Listen, Deckard; you realize we don’t manufacture anything here on Earth, right? We can’t just phone down to production and ask for a diverse flock of items; it’s not that we don’t want or intend to cooperate with you. Anyhow I’ve done the best I can.” His left hand, shakily, roved through his thinning hair.

Indicating his department briefcase, Rick said, “I’m ready to start. The senior Rosen’s nervousness buoyed up his own confidence. They’re afraid of me, he realized with a start. Rachael Rosen included. I can probably force them to abandon manufacture of their Nexus-6 types; what I do during the next hour will affect the structure of their operation. It could conceivably determine the future of the Rosen Association, here in the United States, in Russia, and on Mars.

The two members of the Rosen family studied him apprehensively and he felt the hollowness of their manner; by coming here he had brought the void to them, had ushered in emptiness and the hush of economic death. They control inordinate power, he thought. This enterprise is considered one of the system’s industrial pivots; the manufacture of androids, in fact, has become so linked to the colonization effort that if one dropped into ruin, so would the other in time. The Rosen Association, naturally, understood this perfectly. Eldon Rosen had obviously been conscious of it since Harry Bryant’s call.

“I wouldn’t worry if I were you,” Rick said as the two Rosens led him down a highly illuminated wide corridor. He himself felt quietly content. This moment, more than any other which he could remember, pleased him. Well, they would all soon know what his testing apparatus could accomplish—and could not. “If you have no confidence in the Voigt-Kampff scale,” he pointed out, “possibly your organization should have researched an alternate test. It can be argued that the responsibility rests partly on you. Oh, thanks.” The Rosens had steered him from the corridor and into a chic, living roomish cubicle furnished with carpeting, lamps, couch, and modern little end—tables on which rested recent magazines … including, he noticed, the February supplement to the Sidney’s catalogue, which he personally had not seen. In fact, the February supplement wouldn’t be out for another three days. Obviously the Rosen Association had a special relationship with Sidney’s.

Annoyed, he picked up the supplement. “This is a violation of public trust. Nobody should get advance news of price changes.” As a matter of fact this might violate a federal statute; he tried to remember the relevant law, found he could not. “I’m taking this with me,” he said, and, opening his briefcase, dropped the supplement within.

After an interval of silence, Eldon Rosen said wearily, “Look, officer, it hasn’t been our policy to solicit advance—”

“I’m not a peace officer,” Rick said. “I’m a bounty hunter.” From his opened briefcase he fished out the Voigt-Kampff apparatus, seated himself at a nearby rosewood coffee table, and began to assemble the rather simple polygraphic instruments. “You may send the first testee in,” he informed Eldon Rosen, who now looked more haggard than ever.

“I’d like to watch,” Rachael said, also seating herself. “I’ve never seen an empathy test being administered. What do those things you have there measure?”

Rick said, “This”—he held up the flat adhesive disk with its trailing wires—”measures capillary dilation in the facial area. We know this to be a primary autonomic response, the so—called ‘shame’ or ‘blushing’ reaction to a morally shocking stimulus. It can’t be controlled voluntarily, as can skin conductivity, respiration, and cardiac rate.” He showed her the other instrument, a pencil-beam light. “This records fluctuations of tension within the eye muscles. Simultaneous with the blush phenomenon there generally can be found a small but detectable movement of—”

“And these can’t be found in androids,” Rachael said.

“They’re not engendered by the stimuli-questions; no. Although biologically they exist. Potentially.”

Rachael said, “Give me the test.”

“Why?” Rick said, puzzled.

Speaking up, Eldon Rosen said hoarsely, “We selected her as your first subject. She may be an android. We’re hoping you can tell.” He seated himself in a series of clumsy motions, got out a cigarette, lit it and fixedly watched.