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

distaste still manifest.
"My briefcase," Rick said as he rummaged for the Voigt-Kampff forms. "Nice, isn't it?
Department issue."
"Well, well," Rachael said remotely.
"Babyhide," Rick said. He stroked the black leather surface of the briefcase. "One
hundred percent genuine human babyhide." He saw the two dial indicators gyrate frantically.
But only after a pause. The reaction had come, but too late. He knew the reaction period
down to a fraction of a second, the correct reaction period; there should have been none.
"Thanks, Miss Rosen," he said, and gathered together the equipment again; he had
concluded his retesting. "That's all."
"You're leaving?" Rachael asked.
"Yes," he said. "I'm satisfied."
Cautiously, Rachael said, "What about the other nine subjects?"
"The scale has been adequate in your case," he answered. "I can extrapolate from that;
it's clearly still effective." To Eldon Rosen, who slumped morosely by the door of the room, he
said, "Does she know?" Sometimes they didn't; false memories had been tried various
times, generally in the mistaken idea that through them reactions to testing would be altered.
Eldon Rosen said, "No. We programmed her completely.
But I think toward the end she suspected." To the girl he said, "You guessed when he
asked for one more try."
Pale, Rachael nodded fixedly.
"Don't be afraid of him," Eldon Rosen told her. "You're not an escaped android on Earth
illegally; you're the property of the Rosen Association, used as a sales device for
prospective emigrants." He walked to the girl, put his hand comfortingly on her shoulder; at
the touch the girl flinched.
"He's right," Rick said. "I'm not going to retire you, Miss Rosen. Good day." He started
toward the door, then halted briefly. To the two of them he said, "is the owl genuine?"
Rachael glanced swiftly at the elder Rosen.
"He's leaving anyhow," Eldon Rosen said. "It doesn't matter; the owl is artificial. There are
no owls."
"Hmm," Rick muttered, and stepped numbly out into the corridor. The two of them watched
him go. Neither said anything. Nothing remained to say. So that's how the largest
manufacturer of androids operates, Rick said to himself. Devious, and in a manner he had
never encountered before. A weird and convoluted new personality type; no wonder law
enforcement agencies were having trouble with the Nexus-6.
The Nexus-6. He had now come up against it. Rachael, he realized; she must be a
Nexus-6. I'm seeing one of them for the first time. And they damn near did it; they came
awfully damn close to undermining the Voigt-Kampff scale, the only method we have for
detecting them. The Rosen Association does a good job — makes a good try, anyhow — at
protecting its products.
And I have to face six more of them, he reflected. Before I'm finished.
He would earn the bounty money. Every cent.
Assuming he made it through alive.


SIX

The TV set boomed; descending the great empty apartment building's dust-stricken stairs to
the level below, John Isidore made out now the familiar voice of Buster Friendly, burbling
happily to his system-wide vast audience.