Philip Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Standing there he realized, all at once, that he had acquired an overt, incontestable fear directed toward the principal android. It all hung on Baty—had hung on it from the start. Up to now he had encountered and retired progressively more ominous manifestations of Baty. Now came Baty itself. Thinking that he felt the fear grow; it snared him completely, now that he had let it approach his conscious mind. “I can’t go without you now,” he said to Rachael. “I can’t even leave here. Polokov came after me; Garland virtually came after me.”

“You think Roy Baty will look you up?” Setting down her empty glass she bent forward, reached back, and unfastened her bra. With agility she slid it from her, then stood, swaying, and grinning because she swayed. “In my purse,” she said, “I have a mechanism which our autofac on Mars builds as an emer—” She grimaced. “An emergency safety thingamajing, -jig, while they’re putting a newly made andy through its routine inspection checks. Get it out. It resembles an oyster. You’ll see it.”

He began hunting through the purse. Like a human woman, Rachael had every class of object conceivable filched and hidden away in her purse; he found himself rooting interminably.

Meanwhile, Rachael kicked off her boots and unzipped her shorts; balancing on one foot she caught the discarded fabric with her toe and tossed it across the room. She then dropped onto the bed, roiled over to fumble for her glass, accidently pushed the glass to the carpeted floor. “Damn,” she said, and once again got shakily to her feet; in her underpants she stood watching him at work on her purse, and then, with careful deliberation and attention she drew the bedcovers back, got in, drew the covers over her.

“Is this it?” He held up a metallic sphere with a button-stem projecting.

“That cancels an android into catalepsy,” Rachael said, her eyes shut. “For a few seconds. Suspends its respiration; yours, too, but humans can function without respiring—perspiring?—for a couple of minutes, but the vagus nerve of an andy—”

“I know.” He straightened up. “The android autonomic nervous system isn’t as flexible at cutting in and out as ours. But as you say, this wouldn’t work for more than five or six seconds.”

“Long enough,” Rachael murmured, “to save your life. So, see—” She roused herself, sat up in the bed. “If Roy Baty shows up here you can be holding that in your hand and you can press the stem on that thing. And while Roy Baty is frozen stiff with no air supply to his blood and his brain cells deteriorating you can kill Roy Baty with your laser.”

“You have a laser tube,” he said. “In your purse.”

“A fake. Androids”—she yawned, eyes again shut—”aren’t permitted to carry lasers.”

He walked over to the bed.

Squirming about, Rachael managed to roll over at last onto her stomach, face buried in the white lower sheet. “This is a clean, noble, virgin type of bed,” she stated. “Only clean, noble girls who—” She pondered. “Androids can’t bear children,” she said, then. “Is that a loss?”

He finished undressing her. Exposed her pale, cold loins.

“Is it a loss?” Rachael repeated. “I don’t really know; I have no way to tell. How does it feel to have a child? How does it feel to be born, for that matter? We’re not born; we don’t grow up; instead of dying from illness or old age we wear out like ants. Ants again; that’s what we are. Not you; I mean me. Chitinous reflex-machines who aren’t really alive.” She twisted her head to one side, said loudly, “I’m not alive! You’re not going to bed with a woman. Don’t be disappointed; okay? Have you ever made love to an android before?”

“No,” he said, taking off his shirt and tie.

“I understand—they tell me—it’s convincing if you don’t think too much about it. But if you think too much, if you reflect on what you’re doing—then you can’t go on. For ahem physiological reasons.”

Bending, he kissed her bare shoulder.

“Thanks, Rick,” she said wanly. “Remember, though: don’t think about it, just do it. Don’t pause and be philosophical, because from a philosophical standpoint it’s dreary. For us both.”

He said, “Afterward I still intend to look for Roy Baty. I still need you to be there. I know that laser tube you have in your purse is—”

“You think I’ll retire one of your andys for you;”

“I think in spite of what you said you’ll help me all you can. Otherwise you wouldn’t be lying there in that bed.”

“I love you,” Rachael said. “If I entered a room and found a sofa covered with your hide I’d score very high on the Voigt-Kampff test.”

Tonight sometime, he thought as he clicked off the bedside light, I will retire a Nexus-6 which looks exactly like this naked girl. My good god, he thought; I’ve wound up where Phil Resch said. Go to bed with her first, he remembered. Then kill her. “I can’t do it,” he said, and backed away from the bed.

“I wish you could,” Rachael said. Her voice wavered.

“Not because of you. Because of Pris Stratton; what I have to do to her.”

“We’re not the same. I don’t can about Pris Stratton. Listen.” Rachael thrashed about in the bed, sitting up; in the gloom he could dimly make out her almost breastless, trim shape. “ Go to bed with me and I’ll retire Stratton . Okay? Because I can’t stand getting this close and then—”

“Thank you,” he said; gratitude—undoubtedly because of the bourbon—rose up inside him, constricting his throat. Two, he thought. I now have only two to retire; just the Batys. Would Rachael really do it? Evidently. Androids thought and functioned that way. Yet he had never come across anything quite like this.

“Goddamn it, get into bed,” Rachael said.

He got into bed.

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.