“Not with the deer head,” Rachael said. The gauges, however, showed an amplitude within the green only.
“You become pregnant,” Rick continued, “by a man who has promised to marry you. The man goes off with another woman, your best friend; you get an abortion and — ”
“I would never get an abortion,” Rachael said. “Anyhow you can’t. It’s a life sentence and the police are always watching.” This time both needles swung violently into the red.
“How do you know that?” Rick asked her, curiously. “About the difficulty of obtaining an abortion?”
“Everybody knows that,” Rachael answered.
“It sounded like you spoke from personal experience.”‘ He watched the needles intently; they still swept out a wide path across the dials. “One more. You’re dating a man and he asks you to visit his apartment. While you’re there he offers you a drink. As you stand holding your glass you see into the bedroom; it’s attractively decorated with bullfight posters, and you wander in to look closer. He follows after you, closing the door. Putting his arm around you, he says — ”
Rachael interrupted, “What’s a bullfight poster?”
“Drawings, usually in color and very large, showing a matador with his cape, a bull trying to gore him.” He was puzzled. “How old are you?” he asked; that might be a factor.
“I’m eighteen,” Rachael said. “Okay; so this man closes the door and puts his arm around me. What does he say?”
Rick said, “Do you know how bullfights ended;”
“I suppose somebody got hurt.”
“The bull at the end, was always killed.” He waited, watching the two needles. They palpitated restlessly, nothing more. No real reading at all. “A final question,” he said. “Two-part. You are watching an old movie on TV, a movie from before the war. It shows a banquet in progress; the guests are enjoying raw oysters.”
“Ugh,” Rachael said; the needles swung swiftly.
“The entree,” he continued, “consists of boiled dog, stuffed with rice.” The needles moved less this time, less than they had for the raw oysters. “Are raw oysters more acceptable to you than a dish of boiled dog? Evidently not.” He put his pencil down, shut off the beam of light, removed the adhesive patch from her check. “You’re an android,” he said. “That’s the conclusion of the testing,” he informed her — or rather it — and Eldon Rosen, who regarded him with writhing worry; the elderly man’s face contorted, shifted plastically with angry concern. “I’m right, aren’t I?” Rick said. There was no answer, from either of the Rosens. “Look,” he said reasonably. “We have no conflict of interest; it’s important to me that the Voigt-Kampff test functions, almost as important as it is to you.”
The elder Rosen said, “She’s not an android.”
“I don’t believe it,” Rick said.
“Why would he lie?” Rachael said to Rick fiercely. “If anything, we’d lie the other way.”
“I want a bone marrow analysis made of you,” Rick said to her. “It can eventually be organically determined whether you’re android or not; it’s slow and painful, admittedly, but — ”
“Legally,” Rachael said, “I can’t be forced to undergo a bone marrow test. That’s been established in the courts; self-incrimination. And anyhow on a live person — not the corpse of a retired android — it takes a long time. You can give that damn Voigt-Kampff profile test because of the specials; they have to be tested for constantly, and while the government was doing that you police agencies slipped the Voigt-Kampff through. But what you said is true; that’s the end of the testing.” She rose to her feet, paced away from him, and stood with her hands on her hips, her back to him.
“The issue is not the legality of the bone marrow analysis,” Eldon Rosen said huskily. “The issue is that your empathy delineation test failed in response to my niece. I can explain why she scored as an android might. Rachael grew up aboard Salander 3. She was born on it; she spent fourteen of her eighteen years living off its tape library and what the nine other crew members, all adults, knew about Earth. Then, as you know, the ship turned back a sixth of the way to Proxima. Otherwise Rachael would never have seen Earth — anyhow not until her later life.”
“You would have retired me,” Rachael said over her shoulder. “In a police dragnet I would have been killed. I’ve known that since I got here four years ago; this isn’t the first time the Voigt-Kampff test has been given to me. In fact I rarely leave this building; the risk is enormous, because of those roadblocks you police set up, those flying wedge spot checks to pick up unclassified specials.”
“And androids,” Eldon Rosen added. “Although naturally the public isn’t told that; they’re not supposed to know that androids are on Earth, in our midst.”
“I don’t think they are,” Rick said. “I think the various police agencies here and in the Soviet Union have gotten them all. The population is small enough now; everyone, sooner or later, runs into a random checkpoint.” That, anyhow, was the idea.
“What were your instructions,” Eldon Rosen asked, “if you wound up designating a human as android?”
“That’s a departmental matter.” He began restoring his testing gear to his briefcase; the two Rosens watched silently. “Obviously,” he added, “I was told to cancel further testing, as I’m now doing. If it failed once there’s no point in going on.” He snapped the briefcase shut.
“We could have defrauded you,” Rachael said. “Nothing forced us to admit you mistested me. And the same for the other nine subjects we’ve selected.” She gestured vigorously. “All we had to do was simply go along with your test results, either way.”
Rick said, “I would have insisted on a list in advance. A sealed-envelope breakdown. And compared my own test results for congruity. There would have had to be congruity.” And I can see now, he realized, that I wouldn’t have gotten it. Bryant was right. Thank god I didn’t go out bounty hunting on the basis of this test.
“Yes, I suppose you would have done that,” Eldon Rosen said. He glanced at Rachael, who nodded. “We discussed that possibility,” Eldon said, then, with reluctance.
“This problem,” Rick said, “stems entirely from your method of operation, Mr. Rosen. Nobody forced your organization to evolve the production of humanoid robots to a point where — ”
“We produced what the colonists wanted,” Eldon Rosen said. “We followed the time-honored principle underlying every commercial venture. If our firm hadn’t made these progressively more human types, other firms in the field would have. We knew the risk we were taking when we developed the Nexus-6 brain unit. But your Voigt-Kampff test was a failure before we released that type of android. If you had failed to classify a Nexus-6 android as an android, if you had checked it out as human — but that’s not what happened.” His voice had become hard and bitingly penetrating. “Your police department — others as well — may have retired, very probably have retired, authentic humans with underdeveloped empathic ability, such as my innocent niece here. Your position, Mr. Deckard, is extremely bad morally. Ours isn’t.”
“In other words,” Rick said with acuity, “I’m not going to be given a chance to check out a single Nexus-6. You people dropped this schizoid girl on me beforehand.” And my test, he realized, is wiped out. I shouldn’t have gone for it, he said to himself. However, it’s too late now.
“We have you, Mr. Deckard,” Rachael Rosen agreed in a quiet, reasonable voice; she turned toward him, then, and smiled.
He could not make out, even now, how the Rosen Association had managed to snare him, and so easily. Experts, he realized. A mammoth corporation like this — it embodies too much experience. It possesses in fact a sort of group mind. And Eldon and Rachael Rosen consisted of spokesmen for that corporate entity. His mistake, evidently, had been in viewing them as individuals. It was a mistake he would not make again.
“Your superior Mr. Bryant,” Eldon Rosen said, “will have difficulty understanding how you happened to let us void your testing apparatus before the test began.” He pointed toward the ceiling, and Rick saw the camera lens. His massive error in dealing with the Rosens had been recorded. “I think the right thing for us all to do,” Eldon said, “is sit down and — ” He gestured affably. “We can work something out, Mr. Deckard. There’s no need for anxiety. The Nexus-6 variety of android is a fact; we here at the Rosen Association recognize it and I think now you do, too.”
Rachael, leaning toward Rick, said, ‘How would you like to own an owl?
“I doubt if I’ll ever own an owl.” But he knew what she meant; he understood the business the Rosen Association wanted to transact. Tension of a kind he had never felt before manifested itself inside him; it exploded, leisurely, in every part of his body. He felt the tension, the consciousness of what was happening, take over completely.