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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 some 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 feel." 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 innate 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
storelike 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 girl 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. "Twenty-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 ew minutes ago brought 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 really hate me," Phil Resch said, marveling.
"All of a sudden; you didn't hate me back on Mission
Street. Not while I was saving your life."
"I see a pattern. The way you killed Garland and
then the way you killed Luba. You don't kill the way I
do; you don't try to -- "Hell," he said. "I know what it is.
You like to kill. All you need is a pretext. If you had a
pretext you'd kill me. That's why you picked up on the
possibility of Garland being an android; it made him
available for being killed. I wonder what you're going
to do when you fail to pass the Boneli test. Will you
kill yourself? Sometimes androids do that." But the
situation was rare.
"Yes, I'll take care of it," Phil Resch said. "You
won't have to do anything, besides administering the
test."
A patrol car arrived; two policemen hopped out,
strode up, saw the crowd of people and at once cleared
themselves a passage through. One of them recognized
Rick and nodded. So we can go now, Rick realized.
Our business here is concluded. Finally.
As he and Resch walked back down the street to the
opera house, on whose roof their hovercar lay parked,
Resch said, "I'll give you my laser tube now. So you
won't have to worry about my reaction to the test. In
terms of your own personal safety." He held out the
tube and Rick accepted it.
"How'll you kill yourself without it?" Rick asked. "If
you fail 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 he had assumed
that throughout his psyche he experienced the android
as a clever machine -- as in his conscious view. And yet,
in contrast to Phil Resch, a difference had manifested
itself. And he felt instinctively that he was right. Empathy toward an artificial construct? he asked himself.
Something that only pretends to be alive? But Luba
Luft had seemed genuinely alive; it had not worn the
aspect of a simulation.
"You realize," Phil Resch said quietly, "what this
would do. If we included androids in our range of
empathic identification, as we do animals."
"We couldn't protect ourselves."
"Absolutely. These Nexus-6 types
... they'd roll all
over us and mash us flat. You and I, all the bounty
hunters -- we stand between the Nexus-6 and mankind,
a barrier which keeps the two distinct. Furthermore --"
He ceased, noticing that Rick was once again hauling
out his test gear. "I thought the test was over."
"I want to ask myself a question," Rick said. " And I
want you to tell me what the needles register. Just give
me the calibration; I can compute it." He plastered the
adhesive disk against his cheek, arranged the beam of
light until it fed directly into his eye. "Are you ready?
Watch the dials. We'll exclude time lapse in this; I just
want magnitude."
"Sure, Rick," Phil Resch said obligingly.
Aloud, Rick said, "I'm going down by elevator with
an android I've captured. And suddenly someone kills
it, without warning."
"No particular response," Phil Resch said.
"What'd the needles hit?"
"The left one 2.8. The right one 3.3."
Rick said, "A female android."
"Now they're up to 4.0 and 6. respectively."
"That's high enough," Rick said; he removed the
wired adhesive disk from his cheek and shut off the
beam of light. "That's an emphatically empathic response," he said. "About what a human subject shows
for most questions. Except for the extreme ones, such
as those dealing with human pelts used decoratively ...
the truly pathological ones."
"Meaning?"
Rick said, "I'm capable of feeling empathy for at
least specific, certain androids. Not for all of them but -- one or two." For Luba Luft, as an example, he said
to himself. So I was wrong. There's nothing unnatural
or unhuman about Phil Resch's reactions; it's me.
I wonder, he wondered, if any human has ever felt
this way before about an android.
Of course, he reflected, this may never come up
again in my work; it could be an anomaly, something
for instance to do with my feelings for The Magic
Flute. And for Luba's voice, in fact her career as a
whole. Certainly this had never come up before; or at
least not that he had been aware of. Not, for example,
with Polokov. Nor with Garland. And, he realized, if
Phil Resch had proved out android I could have killed
him without feeling anything, anyhow after Luba's
death.
So much for the distinction between authentic living
humans and humanoid constructs. In that elevator at
the museum, he said to himself, I rode down with two
creatures, one human, the other android ... and my
feelings were the reverse of those intended. Of those
I'm accustomed to feel -- am required to feel.
"You're in a spot, Deckard," Phil Resch said; it
seemed to amuse him.
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 anyhow."
"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.
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