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SEVENTEEN
Afterward they enjoyed a great luxury: Rick had
room service bring up coffee. He sat for a long time
within the arms of a green, black, and gold leaf lounge
chair, sipping coffee and meditating about the next few
hours. Rachael, in the bathroom, squeaked and hummed
and splashed in the midst of a hot shower.
"You made a good deal when you made that deal,"
she called when she had shut off the water; dripping,
her hair tied up with a rubber band, she appeared bare
and pink at the bathroom door. "We androids can't
control our physical, sensual passions. You probably
knew that; in my opinion you took advantage of me."
She did not, however, appear genuinely angry. If anything she had become cheerful and certainly as human
as any girl he had known. "Do we really have to go
track down those three andys tonight?"
"Yes," he said. Two for me to retire, he thought; one
for you. As Rachael put it, the deal had been made.
Gathering a giant white bath towel about her, Rachael said, "Did you enjoy that?"
"Yes."
"Would you ever go to bed with an android again?"
"If it was a girl. If she resembled you."
Rachael said, "Do you know what the lifespan of a
humanoid robot such as myself is? I've been in existence two years. How long do you calculate I have?"
After a hesitation he said, "About two more years."
"They never could solve that problem.
I mean cell replacement. Perpetual or anyhow semi-perpetual renewal. Well, so it goes." Vigorously she began drying
herself. Her face had become expressionless.
"I'm sorry," Rick said.
"Hell," Rachael said, "I'm sorry I mentioned it.
Anyhow it keeps humans from running off and living
with an android."
"And this is true with you Nexus-6 types too?"
"It's the metabolism. Not the brain unit." She trotted
out, swept up her underpants, and began to dress.
He, too, dressed. Then together, saying little, the two
of them journeyed to the roof field, where his hovercar
had been parked by the pleasant white-clad human attendant.
As they headed toward the suburbs of San Francisco,
Rachael said, "It's a nice night."
"My goat is probably asleep by now," he said. "Or
maybe goats are nocturnal. Some animals never sleep.
Sheep never do, not that I could detect; whenever you
look at them they're looking back. Expecting to be fed."
"What sort of wife do you have?"
He did not answer.
"Do you --"
"If you weren't an android," Rick interrupted, "if I
could legally marry you, I would."
Rachael said, "Or we could live in sin, except that
I'm not alive."
"Legally you're not. But really you are. Biologically.
You re not made out of transistorized circuits like a false animal; you're an organic entity." And in two
years, he thought, you'll wear out and die. Because we
never solved the problem of cell replacement, as you pointed out. So I guess it doesn't matter anyhow.
This is my end, he said to himself. As a
bounty
hunter. After the Batys there won't be any more. Not
after this, tonight.
"You look so sad," Rachael said.
Putting his hand out he touched her cheek.
"You're not going to be able to hunt androids any
longer," she said calmly. "So don't look sad. Please."
He stared at her.
"No bounty hunter ever has gone on," Rachael said.
"After being with me. Except one. A very cynical man.
Phil Resch. And he's nutty; he works out in left field on
his own."
"I see," Rick said. He felt numb. Completely.
Throughout his entire body.
"But this trip we're taking," Rachael said, "won't be
wasted, because you're going to meet a wonderful, spiritual man."
"Roy Baty," he said. "Do you know all of them?"
"I knew all of them, when they still existed. I know
three, now. We tried to stop you this morning, before
you started out with Dave Holden's list. I tried again,
just before Polokov reached you. But then after that I
had to wait."
"Until I broke down," he said. "And had to call
you."
"Luba Luft and I had been close, very close friends
for almost two years. What did you think of her? Did
you like her?"
"I liked her."
"But you killed her."
"Phil Resch killed her."
"Oh, so Phil accompanied you back to the opera
house. We didn't know that; our communications broke
down about then. We knew just that she had been killed;
we naturally assumed by you."
"From Dave's notes," he said, "I think I can still go
ahead and retire Roy Baty. But maybe not Irmgard
Baty." And not Pris Stratton, he thought. Even now; even knowing
this. "So all that took place at the hotel,"
he said, "consisted of a --"
"The association, " Rachael said, "wanted to reach
the bounty hunters here and in the Soviet Union. This
seemed to work ... for reasons which we do not fully
understand. Our limitation again, I guess."
"I doubt if it works as often or as well as you say,"
he said thickly.
"But it has with you."
"We'll see."
"I already know," Rachael said. "When I saw that
expression on your face, that grief. I look for that."
"How many times have you done this?"
"I don't remember. Seven, eight. No, I believe it's
nine." She -- or rather it -- nodded. "Yes, nine times."
"The idea is old-fashioned," Rick said.
Startled, Rachael said, "W-what?"
Pushing the steering wheel away from him he put the
car into a gliding decline. "Or anyhow that's how it
strikes me. I'm going to kill you," he said. "And go on
to Roy and Irmgard Baty and Pris Stratton alone."
"That's why you're landing?" Apprehensively, she
said, "There's a fine; I'm the property, the legal property, of the association. I'm not an escaped android
who fled here from Mars; I'm not in the same class as
the others."
"But," he said, "if I can kill you then I can kill
them."
Her hands dived for her bulging, overstuffed, kipple-filled purse; she searched frantically, then gave up.
"Goddamn this purse," she said with ferocity. "I never
can lay my hands on anything in it. Will you kill me in a way that won't hurt? I mean, do it carefully. If I don't
fight; okay? I promise not to fight. Do you agree?"
Rick said, "I understand now why Phil Resch said
what he said. He wasn't being cynical; he had just
learned too much. Going through this -- I can't blame
him. It warped him."
"But the wrong way." She seemed more externally
composed, now. But still fundamentally frantic and
tense. Yet, the dark fire waned; the life force oozed out
of her, as he had so often witnessed before with other
androids. The classic resignation. Mechanical, intellectual acceptance
of that which a genuine organism --
with two billion years of the pressure to live and evolve
hagriding it -- could never have reconciled itself to.
"I can't stand the way you androids give up," he said
savagely. The car now swooped almost to the ground;
he had to jerk the wheel toward him to avoid a crash.
Braking, he managed to bring the car to a staggering,
careening halt; he slammed off the motor and got out
his laser tube.
"At the occipital bone, the posterior base of my
skull," Rachael said. "Please." She twisted about so
that she did not have to look at the laser tube; the beam
would enter unperceived.
Putting his laser tube away Rick said, "I can't do
what Phil Resch said." He snapped the motor back on,
and a moment later they had taken off again.
"If you're ever going to do it," Rachael said, "do it
now. Don't make me wait."
"I'm not going to kill you." He steered the car in the
direction of downtown San Francisco once again.
"Your car's at the St. Francis, isn't it? I'll let you off
there and you can head for Seattle." That ended what
he had to say; he drove in silence.
"Thanks for not killing me," Rachael said presently.
"Hell, as you said you've only got two years of life
left, anyhow. And I've got fifty. I'll live twenty-five
times as long as you."
"But you really look down on me," Rachael said.
"For what I did." Assurance had returned to her; the
litany of her voice picked up pace. "You've gone the
way of the others. The bounty hunters before you. Each time they get furious and talk wildly about killing me,
but when the time comes they can't do it. Just like you,
just now." She lit a cigarette, inhaled with relish. "You
realize what this means, don't you? It means I was
right; you won't be able to retire any more androids; it
won't be just me, it'l1 be the Batys and Stratton, too. So
go on home to your goat. And get some rest." Suddenly she brushed
at her coat, violently. "Yife! I got a burning ash from my cigarette -- there, it's gone." She sank
back against the seat, relaxing.
He said nothing.
"That goat," Rachael said. "You love the goat more
than me. More than you love your wife, probably. First
the goat, then your wife, then last of all --" She laughed
merrily. "What can you do but laugh?"
He did not answer. They continued in silence for a
while and then Rachael poked about, found the car's
radio, and switched it on.
"Turn it off," Rick said.
"Turn off Buster Friendly and his Friendly Friends?
Turn off Amanda Werner and Oscar Scruggs? It's time
to hear Buster's big sensational expose, which is finally
almost arrived." She stooped to read the dial of her
watch by the radio's light. "Very soon now. Did you
already know about it? He's been talking about it,
building up to it, for --"
The radio said, "-- ah jes wan ta tell ya, folks, that
ahm sit ten bib with my pal Bustuh, an we're tawkin en
havin a real mighty fine time, waitin expectantly as we
ah with each tick uh the clock foh what ah understan is
the mos important announcement of --"
Rick shut the radio off. "Oscar Scruggs," he said.
"The voice of intelligent man."
Instantly reaching, Rachael clicked the radio back
on. I want to listen. I intend to listen. This is important, what Buster Friendly has to say on his show tonight." The idiotic voice babbled once more from the
speaker, and Rachael Rosen settled back and made
herself comfortable. Beside him in the darkness the coal of her
cigarette glowed like the rump of a complacent lightning bug: a steady, unwavering index of
Rachael Rosen's achievement. Her victory over him.
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