"Dick, Philip K - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dick Phillip K)

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