Do androids dream of electric sheep?

"No, I have too much to do." The girl shook off the request effortlessly and he noticed that, perceived it without understanding it. Now that her initial fear had diminished, something else had begun to emerge from her. Something more strange. And, he thought, deplorable. A coldness. Like, he thought, a breath from the vacuum between inhabited worlds, in fact from nowhere: it was not what she did or said but what she did not do and say. "Some other time," the girl said, and moved back toward her apartment door.

"Did you get my name?" he said eagerly, "John Isidore, and I work for — "

"You told me who you work for." She had stopped briefly at her door; pushing it open she said, "Some incredible person named Hannibal Sloat, who I'm sure doesn't exist outside your imagination. My name is — " She gave him one last warmthless glance as she returned to her apartment, hesitated, and said, "I'm Rachael Rosen.

"Of the Rosen Association?" he asked. "The system's largest manufacturer of humanoid robots used in our colonization program?

A complicated expression instantly crossed her face, fleetingly, gone at once. "No," she said. "I never heard of them; I don't know anything about it. More of your chickenbead imagination, I suppose. John Isidore and his personal, private empathy box. Poor Mr. Isidore."

"But your name suggests — "

"My name," the girt said, "is Pris Stratton. That's my married name; I always use it. I never use any other name but Pris. You can call me Pris." She reflected, then said, "No, you'd better address me as Miss Stratton. Because we don't really know each other. At least I don't know you." The door shut after her and he found himself alone in the dust-strewn dim hall.

SEVEN

Well, so it goes, J. R. Isidore thought as he stood clutching his soft cube of margarine. Maybe she'll change her mind about letting me call her Pris. And possibly, if I can pick up a 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.