Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (13 page)

“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 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 he 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 bounty 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 bull 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—”

“I’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.

10

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 modern, 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. “Ident-purposes.”

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 cephalic 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?”