Do androids dream of electric sheep?

"You're not going to be able to hunt androids any longer," she said calmly. "So don't look sad. Please."

He stared at her.

"No bounty bunter ever has gone on," Rachael said. "After being with me. Except one. A very cynical man. Phil Resch. And he's nutty; he works out in left field on his own."

"I see," Rick said. He felt numb. Completely. Throughout his entire body.

"But this trip we're taking," Rachael said, "won't be wasted, because you're going to meet a wonderful, spiritual man."

"Roy Baty," he said. "Do you know all of them?"

"I knew all of them, when they still existed. I know three, now. We tried to stop you this morning, before you started out with Dave Holden's list. I tried again, just before Polokov reached you. But then after that I had to wait."

"Until I broke down," he said. "And had to call you."

"Luba Luft and I had been close, very close friends for almost two years. What did you think of her? Did you like her?

"I liked her."

"But you killed her."

"Phil Resch killed her."

"Oh, so Phil accompanied you back to the opera house. We didn't know that; our communications broke down about then. We knew just that she had been killed; we naturally assumed by you."

"From Dave's notes," he said, "I think I can still go ahead and retire Roy Baty. But maybe not Irmgard Baty." And not Pris Stratton, he thought. Even now; even knowing this.

"So all that took place at the hotel" he said, "consisted of a — "

"The association," Rachael said, "wanted to reach the bounty hunters here and in the Soviet Union. This seemed to work . . . for reasons which we do not fully understand. Our limitation again, I guess."

"I doubt if it works as often or as well as you say," he said thickly.

"But it has with you."

"We'll see."

"I already know," Rachael said. "When I saw that expression on your face, that grief. I look for that."

"How many times have you done this?"

"I don't remember. Seven, eight. No, I believe it's nine." She — or rather it — nodded. "Yes, nine times."

"The idea is old-fashioned," Rick said.

Startled, Rachael said, "W-what?"

Pushing the steering wheel away from him he put the car into a gliding decline. "Or anyhow that's how it strikes me. I'm going to kill you," he said. "And go on to Roy and Irmgard Baty and Pris Stratton alone."

"That's why you're landing?" Apprehensively, she said, "There's a fine; I'm the property, the legal property, of the association. I'm not an escaped android who fled here from Mars; I'm not in the same class as the others."

"But," he said, "if I can kill you then I can kill them."

Her hands dived for her bulging, overstuffed, kipple-filled purse; she searched frantically, then gave up. "Goddamn this purse," she said with ferocity. "I never can lay my hands on anything in it. Will you kill me in a way that won't hurt? I mean, do it carefully. If I don't fight; okay? I promise not to fight. Do you agree?"

Rick said, "I understand now why Phil Resch said what he said. He wasn't being cynical; he had just learned too much. Going through this — I can't blame him. It warped him."

"But the wrong way." She seemed more externally composed, now. But still fundamentally frantic and tense. Yet, the dark fire waned; the life force oozed out of her, as he had so often witnessed before with other androids. The classic resignation. Mechanical, intellectual acceptance of that which a genuine organism — with two billion years of the pressure to live and evolve hagriding it — could never have reconciled itself to.

"I can't stand the way you androids give up," he said savagely. The car now swooped almost to the ground; he had to jerk the wheel toward him to avoid a crash. Braking, he managed to bring the car to a staggering, careening halt; he slammed off the motor and got out his laser tube.

"At the occipital bone, the posterior base of my skull," Rachael said. "Please." She twisted about so that she did not have to look at the laser tube; the beam would enter unperceived.

Putting his laser tube away Rick said, "I can't do what Phil Resch said." He snapped the motor back on, and a moment later they had taken off again.

"If you're ever going to do it," Rachael said, "do it now. Don't make me wait."

"I'm not going to kill you." He steered the car in the direction of downtown San Francisco once again. "Your car's at the St. Francis, isn't it? I'll let you off there and you can head for Seattle." That ended what he had to say; he drove in silence.

"Thanks for not killing me," Rachael said presently.

"Hell, as you said you've only got two years of life left, anyhow. And I've got fifty. I'll live twenty-five times as long as you."

"But you really look down on me," Rachael said. "For what I did." Assurance had returned to her; the litany of her voice picked up pace. "You've gone the way of the others.