"Dick, Philip K - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dick Phillip K)

AND STILL I DREAM HE TREADS THE LAWN,
WALKING GHOSTLY IN THE DEW,

PIERCED BY MY GLAD SINGING THROUGH.

Yeats


AUCKLAND

A TURTLE WHICH EXPLORER CAPTAIN COOK GAVE TO THE KING OF TONGA IN
1777 DIED YESTERDAY. IT WAS NEARLY 200 YEARS OLD.
THE ANIMAL, CALLED TU'IMALILA, DIED AT THE ROYAL PALACE GROUND IN
THE TONGAN CAPITAL OF NUKU, ALOFA.
THE PEOPLE OF TONGA REGARDED THE ANIMAL AS A CHIEF AND SPECIAL
KEEPERS WERE APPOINTED TO LOOK AFTER IT. IT WAS BLINDED IN A BUSH FIRE A
FEW YEARS AGO.
TONGA RADIO SAID TU'IMALILA'S CARCASS WOULD BE SENT TO THE
AUCKLAND MUSEUM IN NEW ZEALAND.

Reuters, 1966


ONE

A merry little surge of electricity piped by automatic alarm from the mood organ beside his bed
awakened Rick Deckard. Surprised — it always surprised him to find himself awake without prior
notice — he rose from the bed, stood up in his multicolored pajamas, and stretched. Now, in her
bed, his wife Iran opened her gray, unmerry eyes, blinked, then groaned and shut her eyes again.
"You set your Penfield too weak he said to her. "I'll reset it and you'll be awake and — "
"Keep your hand off my settings." Her voice held bitter sharpness. "I don't want to be awake."
He seated himself beside her, bent over her, and explained softly. "If you set the surge up high
enough, you'll be glad you're awake; that's the whole point. At setting C it overcomes the threshold
barring consciousness, as it does for me." Friendlily, because he felt well-disposed toward the
world his setting had been at D — he patted her bare, pate shoulder.
"Get your crude cop's hand away," Iran said.
"I'm not a cop — " He felt irritable, now, although he hadn't dialed for it.
"You're worse," his wife said, her eyes still shut. "You're a murderer hired by the cops.
"I've never killed a human being in my life." His irritability had risen, now; had become outright
hostility.
Iran said, "Just those poor andys."
"I notice you've never had any hesitation as to spending the bounty money I bring home on
whatever momentarily attracts your attention." He rose, strode to the console of his mood organ.
"Instead of saving," he said, "so we could buy a real sheep, to replace that fake electric one
upstairs. A mere electric animal, and me earning all that I've worked my way up to through the
years." At his console he hesitated between dialing for a thalamic suppressant (which would
abolish his mood of rage) or a thalamic stimulant (which would make him irked enough to win the
argument).