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

can of pre-war vegetables, about dinner, too.
But maybe she doesn't know how to cook, he thought suddenly. Okay, I can do it; I'll fix
dinner for both of us. And I'll show her how so she can do it in the future if she wants. She'll
probably want to, once I show her how; as near as I can make out, most women, even young
ones like her, like to cook: it's an instinct.
Ascending the darkened stairs he returned to his own apartment.
She's really out of touch, he thought as he donned his white work uniform; even if he
hurried he'd be late to work and Mr. Sloat would be angry but so what? For instance, she's
never beard of Buster Friendly. And that's impossible; Buster is the most important human
being alive, except of course for Wilbur Mercer . . . but Mercer, he reflected, isn't a human
being; he evidently is an archetypal entity from the stars, superimposed on our culture by a
cosmic template. At least that's what I've heard people say; that's what Mr. Sloat says, for
instance. And Hannibal Sloat would know.
Odd that she isn't consistent about her own name, he pondered. She may need help. Can I
give her any help? he asked himself. A special, a chickenhead; what do I know? I can't marry
and I can't emigrate and the dust will eventually kill me. I have nothing to offer.
Dressed and ready to go he left his apartment, ascended to the roof where his battered
used hovercar lay parked.

An hour later, in the company track, he had picked up the first malfunctioning animal for the
day. An electric cat: it lay in the plastic dust-proof carrying cage in the rear of the truck and
panted erratically. You'd almost think it was real,
Isidore observed as he headed back to the Van Ness Pet Hospital — that carefully
misnamed little enterprise which barely existed in the tough, competitive field of false-animal
repair.
The cat, in its travail, groaned.
Wow, Isidore said to himself. It really sounds as if it's dying. Maybe its ten-year battery has
shorted, and all its circuits are systematically burning out. A major job; Milt Borogrove, Van
Ness Pet Hospital's repairman, would have his bands full. And I didn't give the owner an
estimate, Isidore realized gloomily. The guy simply thrust the cat at me, said it had begun
failing during the night, and then I guess he took off for work. Anyhow all of a sudden the
momentary verbal exchange had ceased; the cat's owner had gone roaring up into the sky in
his custom new-model handsome hovercar. And the man constituted a new customer.
To the cat, Isidore said, "Can you hang on until we reach the shop?" The cat continued to
wheeze. "I'll recharge you while we're en route," Isidore decided; he dropped the truck
toward the nearest available roof and there, temporarily parked with the motor running,
crawled into the back of the truck and opened the plastic dust-proof carrying cage, which, in
conjunction with his own white suit and the name on the truck, created a total impression of a
true animal vet picking up a true animal.
The electric mechanism, within its compellingly authentic style gray pelt, gurgled and blew
bubbles, its vid-lenses glassy, its metal jaws locked together. This had always amazed him,
these "disease" circuits built into false animals; the construct which he now held on his lap
had been put together in such a fashion that when a primary component misfired, the whole
thing appeared — not broken — but organically ill. It would have fooled me, Isidore said to
himself as he groped within the ersatz stomach fur for the concealed control panel (quite
small on this variety of false animal) plus the quick-charge battery terminals, He could find
neither. Nor could he search very long; the mechanism had almost failed. If it does consist of
a short, he reflected, which is busy burning out circuits, then maybe I should try to detach one
of the battery cables; the mechanism will shut down, but no more harm will be done. And
then, in the shop, Milt can charge it back up.