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’ll 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,” Rachel said. “You love the goat 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? Tum off Amanda Werner and Oscar Scruggs? It’s time to hear Buster’s big sensational exposé, 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 sitten hih with my pal Bustuh, an we’re tawkin en haven 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.
EIGHTEEN
“Bring the rest of my property up here,” Pris ordered J. R. Isidore. “In particular I want the TV set. So we can hear Buster’s announcement.”
“Yes,” Irmgard Baty agreed, bright-eyed, like a darting, plumed swift. “We need the TV; we’ve been waiting a long time for tonight and now it’ll be starting soon.”
Isidore said, “My own set gets the government channel.”
Off in a corner of the living room, seated in a deep chair as if he intended to remain permanently, as if he had taken up lodgings in the chair, Roy Baty belched and said patiently, “It’s Buster Friendly and his Friendly Friends that we want to watch, Iz. Or do you want me to call you J.R.? Anyhow, do you understand? So will you go get the set?”
Alone, Isidore made his way down the echoing, empty hall to the stairs. The potent, strong fragrance of happiness still bloomed in him, the sense of being — for the first time in his dull life — useful. Others depend on me now, he exulted as he trudged down the dust-impacted steps to the level beneath.
And, he thought, it’ll be nice to see Buster Friendly on TV again, instead of just listening on the radio in the store truck. And that’s right, he realized; Buster Friendly is going to reveal his carefully documented sensational exposé tonight. So because of Pris and Roy and Irmgard I get to watch what will probably be the most important piece of news to be released in many years. How about that, he said to himself.
Life, for J. R. Isidore, had definitely taken an upswing.
He entered Pris’s former apartment, unplugged the TV set, and detached the antenna. The silence, all at once, penetrated; he felt his arms grow vague. In the absence of the Batys and Pris he found himself fading out, becoming strangely like the inert television set which he had just unplugged. You have to be with other people, he thought. In order to live at all. I mean, before they came here I could stand it, being alone in the building. But now it’s changed. You can’t go back, he thought. You can’t go from people to nonpeople. In panic he thought, I’m dependent on them. Thank god they stayed.
It would require two trips to transfer Pris’s possessions to the apartment above. Hoisting the TV set he decided to take it first, then the suitcases and remaining clothes.
A few minutes later he had gotten the TV set upstairs; his fingers groaning he placed it on a coffee table in his living room. The Batys and Pris watched impassively.
“We get a good signal in this building,” he panted as he plugged in the cord and attached the antenna. “When I used to get Buster Friendly and his — ”
“Just turn the set on,” Roy Baty said. “And stop talking. He did so, then hurried to the door. “One more trip,” he said, “will do it.” He lingered, warming himself at the hearth of their presence.
“Fine,” Pris said remotely.
Isidore started off once more. I think, he thought, they’re exploiting me sort of. But he did not care. They’re still good friends to have, he said to himself.
Downstairs again, he gathered the girl’s clothing together, stuffed every piece into the suitcases, then labored back down the hall once again and up the stairs.
On a step ahead of him something small moved in the dust.
Instantly he dropped the suitcases; he whipped out a plastic medicine bottle, which, like everyone else, he carried for just this. A spider, undistinguished but alive. Shakily he eased it into the bottle and snapped the cap — perforated by means of a needle — shut tight.
Upstairs, at the door of his apartment, he paused to get his breath.
” — yes sir, folks; the time is now. This is Buster Friendly, who hopes and trusts you’re as eager as I am to share the discovery which I’ve made and by the way had verified by top trained research workers working extra hours over the past weeks. Ho ho, folks; this is it!”
John Isidore said, “I found a spider.”
The three androids glanced up, momentarily moving their attention from the TV screen to him.
“Let’s see it,” Pris said. She held out her hand.
Roy Baty said, “Don’t talk while Buster is on.”
“I’ve never seen a spider,” Pris said. She cupped the medicine bottle in her palms, surveying the creature within. “All those legs. Why’s it need so many legs, J.R.?”
“That’s the way spiders are,” Isidore said, his heart pounding; he had difficulty breathing. “Eight legs.”
Rising to her feet, Pris said, “You know what I think, J.R.? I think it doesn’t need all those legs.”
“Eight?” Irmgard Baty said. “Why couldn’t it get by on four!’ Cut four off and see.” Impulsively opening her purse she produced a pair of clean, sharp cuticle scissors, which she passed to Pris.
A weird terror struck at J. R. Isidore.
Carrying the medicine bottle into the kitchen Pris seated herself at J. R. Isidore’s breakfast table. She removed the lid from the bottle and dumped the spider out. “It probably won’t be able to run as fast,” she said, “but there’s nothing for it to catch around here anyhow. It’ll die anyway.” She reached for the scissors.
“Please,” Isidore said.
Pris glanced up inquiringly. “Is it worth something ?
“Don’t mutilate it,” he said wheezingly. Imploringly.
With the scissors Pris snipped off one of the spider’s legs.
In the living room Buster Friendly on the TV screen said, “Take a look at this enlargement of a section of background. This is the sky you usually see. Wait, I’ll have Earl Parameter, head of my research staff, explain their virtually world-shaking discovery to you.”