DO ANDROIDS



DREAM OF



ELECTRIC SHEEP?













Philip K. Dick













Copyright©Philip K. Dick 1968

All rights reserved



The right of Philip K. Dick to be identified

as the author of this work has been

asserted by him in accordance with the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.



This edition published in Great Britain in 1999 by

Millennium

An imprint of Orion Books Ltd,

Orion House, 5 Upper St Martin's Lane, London WC2H 9EA



Fifth impression 2000



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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library



ISBN 1 85798 813 2



Printed in Great Britain by

Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

TO MAREN AUGUSTA BERGRUD

AUGUST 10, 1923 - JUNE 14, 1967





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'twant 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 settingC it over­comes the threshold barring consciousness, as it does for me." Friendlily, because he felt well-disposed toward the worldhis setting had been atD - 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).

"If you dial," Iran said, eyes open and watching, "for greater venom, then I'll dial the same. I'll dial the maximum and you'll see a fight that makes every argument we've had up to now seem like nothing. Dial and see; just try me." She rose swiftly, loped to the console of her own mood organ, stood glaring at him, waiting.

He sighed, defeated by her threat. "I'll dial what's on my schedule for today." Examining the schedule for January 3, 1992, he saw that a businesslike professional attitude was called for. "If I dial by schedule," he said warily, "will you agree to also?" He waited, canny enough not to commit himself until his wife had agreed to follow suit.

"My schedule for today lists a six-hour self-accusatory depression," Iran said.

"What? Why did you schedule that?" It defeated the whole purpose of the mood organ. "I didn't even know you could set it for that," he said gloomily.

"I was sitting here one afternoon," Iran said, "and naturally I had tamed on Buster Friendly and His Friendly Friends and he was talking about a big news item he's about to break and then that awful commercial came on, the one I hate; you know, for Mountibank Lead Codpieces. And so for a minute I shut off the sound. And I heard the building, this building; I heard the - " She gestured.