“What happened to the 594 I dialed for you before I left? Pleased acknowledgment of—”
“I redialed. As soon as you left. What do you want?” Her voice sank into a dreary drone of despond. “I’m so tired and I just have no hope left, of anything. Of our marriage and you possibly getting killed by one of those andys. Is that what you want to tell me, Rick? That an andy got you?” In the background the racket of Buster Friendly boomed and brayed, eradicating her words; he saw her mouth moving but heard only the TV.
“Listen,” he broke in. “Can you hear me? I’m on to something. A new type of android that apparently nobody can handle but me. I’ve retired one already, so that’s a grand to start with. You know what we’re going to have before I’m through?”
Iran stared at him sightlessly. “Oh,” she said, nodding.
“I haven’t said yet!” He could tell now; her depression this time had become too vast for her even to hear him. For all intents he spoke into a vacuum. “I’ll see you tonight,” he finished bitterly and slammed the receiver down. Damn her, he said to himself. What good does it do, my risking my life? She doesn’t care whether we own an ostrich or not; nothing penetrates. I wish I had gotten rid of her two years ago when we were considering splitting up. I can still do it, he reminded himself.
Broodingly, he leaned down, gathered together on the car floor his crumpled papers, including the info on Luba Luft. No support, he informed himself. Most androids I’ve known have more vitality and desire to live than my wife. She has nothing to give me.
That made him think of Rachael Rosen again. Her advice to me as to the Nexus-6 mentality, he realized, turned out to be correct. Assuming she doesn’t want any of the bounty money, maybe I could use her.
The encounter with Kadalyi-Polokov had changed his ideas rather massively.
Snapping on his hovercar’s engine, he whisked nippity-nip up into the sky, heading toward the old War Memorial Opera House, where, according to Dave Holden’s notes, he would find Luba Luft this time of the day.
He wondered, now, about her, too. Some female androids seemed to him pretty; he had found himself physically attracted by several, and it was an odd sensation, knowing intellectually that they were machines, but emotionally reacting anyhow.
For example Rachael Rosen. No, he decided; she’s too thin. No real development, especially in the bust. A figure like a child’s, flat and tame. He could do better. How old did the poop sheet say Luba Luft was? As he drove he hauled out the now wrinkled notes, found her so-called “age.” Twenty-eight, the sheet read. Judged by appearance, which, with andys, was the only useful standard.
It’s a good thing I know something about opera, Rick reflected. That’s another advantage I have over Dave; I’m more culturally oriented.
I’ll try one more andy before I ask Rachael for help, he decided. If Miss Luft proves exceptionally hard—but he had an intuition she wouldn’t. Polokov had been the rough one; the others, unaware that anyone actively hunted them, would crumble in succession, plugged like a file of ducks.
As he descended toward the ornate, expansive roof of the opera house he loudly sang a potpourri of arias, with pseudo-Italian words made up on the spot by himself; even without the Penfield mood organ at hand his spirits brightened into optimism. And into hungry, gleeful anticipation.
9
In the enormous whale-belly of steel and stone carved out to form the long-enduring old opera house, Rick Deckard found an echoing, noisy, slightly miscontrived rehearsal taking place. As he entered he recognized the music: Mozart’s The Magic Flute, the first act in its final scenes. The Moor’s slaves—in other words the chorus—had taken up their song a bar too soon and this had nullified the simple rhythm of the magic bells.
What a pleasure; he loved The Magic Flute. He seated himself in a dress circle seat (no one appeared to notice him) and made himself comfortable. Now Papageno in his fantastic pelt of bird feathers had joined Pamina to sing words which always brought tears to Rick’s eyes, when and if he happened to think about it.
Könnte jeder brave Mann
solche Glöckchen finden,
seine Feinde würden dann
ohne Mühe schwinden.
Well, Rick thought, in real life no such magic bells exist that make your enemy effortlessly disappear. Too bad. And Mozart, not long after writing The Magic Flute, had died—in his thirties—of kidney disease. And had been buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave.
Thinking this, he wondered if Mozart had had any intuition that the future did not exist, that he had already used up his little time. Maybe I have, too, Rick thought as he watched the rehearsal move along. This rehearsal will end, the performance will end, the singers will die, eventually the last score of the music will be destroyed in one way or another; finally the name “Mozart” will vanish, the dust will have won. If not on this planet then another. We can evade it awhile. As the andys can evade me and exist a finite stretch longer. But I get them or some other bounty hunter gets them. In a way, he realized, I’m part of the form-destroying process of entropy. The Rosen Association creates and I unmake. Or anyhow so it must seem to them.
On the stage Papageno and Pamina engaged in a dialogue. He stopped his introspection to listen.
Papageno: “My child, what should we now say?”
Pamina: “The truth. That’s what we will say.”
Leaning forward and peering, Rick studied Pamina in her heavy, convoluted robes, with her wimple trailing its veil about her shoulders and face. He reexamined the poop sheet, then leaned back, satisfied. I’ve now seen my third Nexus-6 android, he realized. This is Luba Luft. A little ironic, the sentiment her role calls for. However vital, active, and nice-looking, an escaped android could hardly tell the truth; about itself, anyhow.
On the stage Luba Luft sang, and he found himself surprised at the quality of her voice; it rated with that of the best, even that of notables in his collection of historic tapes. The Rosen Association built her well, he had to admit. And again he perceived himself sub specie aeternitatis, the form-destroyer called forth by what he heard and saw here. Perhaps the better she functions, the better a singer she is, the more I am needed. If the androids had remained substandard, like the ancient q-40s made by De-rain Associates—there would be no problem and no need of my skill. I wonder when I should do it, he asked himself. As soon as possible, probably. At the end of the rehearsal when she goes to her dressing room.
At the end of the act the rehearsal ended temporarily. It would resume, the conductor said in English, French, and German, in an hour and a half. The conductor then departed; the musicians left their instruments and also left. Getting to his feet, Rick made his way backstage to the dressing rooms; he followed the tail end of the cast, taking his time and thinking, It’s better this way, getting it immediately over with. I’ll spend as short a time talking to her and testing her as possible. As soon as I’m sure—but technically he could not be sure until after the test. Maybe Dave guessed wrong on her, he conjectured. I hope so. But he doubted it. Already, instinctively, his professional sense had responded. And he had yet to err…throughout years with the department.
Stopping a super, he asked for Miss Luft’s dressing room; the super, wearing makeup and the costume of an Egyptian spear carrier, pointed. Rick arrived at the indicated door, saw an ink-written note tacked to it reading MISS LUFT PRIVATE, and knocked.
“Come in.”
He entered. The girl sat at her dressing table, a much-handled clothbound score open on her knees, marking here and there with a ballpoint pen. She still wore her costume and makeup, except for the wimple; that she had set down on its rack. “Yes?” she said, looking up. The stage makeup enlarged her eyes; enormous and hazel, they fixed on him and did not waver. “I am busy, as you can see.” Her English contained no remnant of an accent.
Rick said, “You compare favorably to Schwarzkopf.”
“Who are you?” Her tone held cold reserve—and that other cold, which he had en
countered in so many androids. Always the same: great intellect, ability to accomplish much, but also this. He deplored it. And yet, without it, he could not track them down.
“I’m from the San Francisco Police Department,” he said.
“Oh?” The huge and intense eyes did not flicker, did not respond. “What are you here about?” Her tone, oddly, seemed gracious.
Seating himself in a nearby chair, he unzipped his briefcase. “I have been sent here to administer a standard personality-profile test to you. It won’t take more than a few minutes.”
“Is it necessary?” She gestured toward the big clothbound score. “I have a good deal I must do.” Now she had begun to look apprehensive.
“It’s necessary.” He got out the Voigt-Kampff instruments, began setting them up.
“An IQ test?”
“No. Empathy.”
“I’ll have to put on my glasses.” She reached to open a drawer of her dressing table.
“If you can mark the score without your glasses, you can take this test. I’ll show you some pictures and ask you several questions. Meanwhile—” He got up and walked to her, and, bending, pressed the adhesive pad of sensitive grids against her deeply tinted cheek. “And this light,” he said, adjusting the angle of the pencil beam, “and that’s it.”
“Do you think I’m an android? Is that it?” Her voice had faded almost to extinction. “I’m not an android. I haven’t even been on Mars; I’ve never even seen an android!” Her elongated lashes shuddered involuntarily; he saw her trying to appear calm. “Do you have information that there’s an android in the cast? I’d be glad to help you, and if I were an android would I be glad to help you?”
“An android,” he said, “doesn’t care what happens to another android. That’s one of the indications we look for.”
“Then,” Miss Luft said, “you must be an android.”
That stopped him; he stared at her.
“Because,” she continued, “your job is to kill them, isn’t it? You’re what they call—” She tried to remember.
“A bounty hunter,” Rick said. “But I’m not an android.”
“This test you want to give me.” Her voice, now, had begun to return. “Have you taken it?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “A long, long time ago; when I first started with the department.”
“Maybe that’s a false memory. Don’t androids sometimes go around with false memories?”
Rick said, “My superiors know about the test. It’s mandatory.”
“Maybe there was once a human who looked like you, and somewhere along the line you killed him and took his place. And your superiors don’t know.” She smiled. As if inviting him to agree.
“Let’s get on with the test,” he said, getting out the sheets of questions.
“I’ll take the test,” Luba Luft said, “if you’ll take it first.”
Again he stared at her, stopped in his tracks.
“Wouldn’t that be more fair?” she asked. “Then I could be sure of you. I don’t know; you seem so peculiar and hard and strange.” She shivered, then smiled again. Hopefully.
“You wouldn’t be able to administer the Voigt-Kampff test. It takes considerable experience. Now please listen carefully. These questions will deal with social situations which you might find yourself in; what I want from you is a statement of response, what you’d do. And I want the response as quickly as you can give it. One of the factors I’ll record is the time lag, if any.” He selected his initial question. “You’re sitting watching TV and suddenly you discover a wasp crawling on your wrist.” He checked with his watch, counting the seconds. And checked, too, with the twin dials.
“What’s a wasp?” Luba Luft asked.
“A stinging bug that flies.”
“Oh, how strange.” Her immense eyes widened with childlike acceptance, as if he had revealed the cardinal mystery of creation. “Do they still exist? I’ve never seen one.”
“They died out because of the dust. Don’t you really know what a wasp is? You must have been alive when there were wasps; that’s only been—”
“Tell me the German word.”
He tried to think of the German word for wasp but couldn’t. “Your English is perfect,” he said angrily.
“My accent,” she corrected, “is perfect. It has to be, for roles, for Purcell and Walton and Vaughn Williams. But my vocabulary isn’t very large.” She glanced at him shyly.
“Wespe,” he said, remembering the German word.
“Ach yes; eine Wespe.” She laughed. “And what was the question? I forget already.”
“Let’s try another.” Impossible now to get a meaningful response. “You are watching an old movie on TV, a movie from before the war. It shows a banquet in progress; the entrée”—he skipped over the first part of the question—“consists of boiled dog, stuffed with rice.”
“Nobody would kill and eat a dog,” Luba Luft said. “They’re worth a fortune. But I guess it would be an imitation dog: ersatz. Right? But those are made of wires and motors; they can’t be eaten.”
“Before the war,” he grated.
“I wasn’t alive before the war.”
“But you’ve seen old movies on TV.”
“Was the movie made in the Philippines?”
“Why?”
“Because,” Luba Luft said, “they used to eat boiled dog stuffed with rice in the Philippines. I remember reading that.”
“But your response,” he said. “I want your social, emotional, moral reaction.”
“To the movie?” She pondered. “I’d turn it off and watch Buster Friendly.”
“Why would you turn it off?”
“Well,” she said hotly, “who the hell wants to watch an old movie set in the Philippines? What ever happened in the Philippines except the Bataan Death March, and would you want to watch that?” She glared at him indignantly. On his dials the needles swung in all directions.
After a pause he said carefully, “You rent a mountain cabin.”
“Ja.” She nodded. “Go on; I’m waiting.”
“In an area still verdant.”
“Pardon?” She cupped her ear. “I don’t ever hear that term.”
“Still trees and bushes growing. The cabin is rustic knotty pine with a huge fireplace. On the walls someone has hung old maps, Currier and Ives prints, and above the fireplace a deer’s head has been mounted, a full stag with developed horns. The people with you admire the decor of the cabin and—”
“I don’t understand ‘Currier’ or ‘Ives’ or ‘decor,’” Luba Luft said; she seemed to be struggling, however, to make out the terms. “Wait.” She held up her hand earnestly. “With rice, like in the dog. Currier is what makes the rice currier rice. It’s Curry in German.”
He could not fathom, for the life of him, if Luba Luft’s semantic fog had purpose. After consultation with himself he decided to try another question; what else could he do? “You’re dating a man,” he said, “and he asks you to visit his apartment. While you’re there—”
“Oh nein,” Luba broke in. “I wouldn’t be there. That’s easy to answer.”
“That’s not the question!”
“Did you get the wrong question? But I understand that; why is a question I understand the wrong one? Aren’t I supposed to understand?” Nervously fluttering, she rubbed her cheek—and detached the adhesive disk. It dropped to the floor, skidded, and rolled under her dressing table. “Ach Gott,” she muttered, bending to retrieve it. A ripping sound, that of cloth tearing. Her elaborate costume.
“I’ll get it,” he said, and lifted her aside; he knelt down, groped under the dressing table until his fingers located the disk.
When he stood up he found himself looking into a laser tube.
“Your questions,” Luba Luft said in a crisp, formal voice, “began to do with sex. I thought they would finally. You’re not from the police department; you’re a sexual deviant.”
“You can look at my identifica
tion.” He reached toward his coat pocket. His hand, he saw, had again begun to shake, as it had with Polokov.
“If you reach in there,” Luba Luft said, “I’ll kill you.”
“You will anyhow.” He wondered how it would have worked out if he had waited until Rachael Rosen could join him. Well, no use dwelling on that.
“Let me see some more of your questions.” She held out her hand and, reluctantly, he passed her the sheets. “‘In a magazine you come across a full-page color picture of a nude girl.’ Well, that’s one. ‘You became pregnant by a man who has promised to marry you. The man goes off with another woman, your best friend; you get an abortion.’ The pattern of your questioning is obvious. I’m going to call the police.” Still holding the laser tube in his direction, she crossed the room, picked up the vidphone, dialed the operator. “Connect me with the San Francisco Police Department,” she said. “I need a policeman.”
“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.