(...) For his first try at the android Polokov, Rick stopped off at the offices of the Bay Area Scavengers Company. “I’m looking for an employee of yours,” he said to the severe, gray-haired switchboard woman. The scavengers’ building impressed him; large and modern, it held a good number of high-class purely office employees. The deep-pile carpets, the expensive genuine wood desks, reminded him that garbage collecting and trash disposal had, since the war, become one of Earth’s important Industries. The entire planet had begun to disintegrate into junk, and to keep the planet habitable for the remaining population the junk had to be hauled away occasionally…or, as Buster Friendly liked to declare, Earth would die under a layer—not of radioactive dust—but of kipple.(...)

(…)Rachael Rosen’s face appeared on the tiny screen. “Hello, Officer Deckard.” Her tone seemed placating; that caught his attention. “Are you busy right now or can I talk to you?” “Go ahead,” he said. “We of the association have been discussing your situation regarding the escaped Nexus-6 types, and knowing them as we do, we feel that you’ll have better luck if one of us works in conjunction with you.” “By doing what?” “Well, by one of us coming along with you. When you go out looking for them.” “Why? What would you add?” Rachael said, “TheNexus-6s would be wary at being approached by a human. But if another Nexus-6 made the contact—” “You specifically mean yourself.” “Yes.” She nodded, her face sober. “I’ve got too much help already.” “But I really think you need me.” “I doubt it. I’ll think it over and call you back.” At some distant, unspecified future time, he said to himself. Or more likely never. That’s all I need: Rachael Rosen popping up through the dust at every step. “You don’t really mean it,” Rachael said. “You’ll never call me. You don’t realize how agile an illegal escaped Nexus-6 is, how impossible it’ll be for you. We feel we owe you this because of—you know. What we did.”“I’ll take it under advisement.” He started to hang up. “Without me,” Rachael said, “one of them will get you before you can get it.” “Good-bye,” he said and hung up. What kind of world is it, he asked himself, when an android phones up a bounty hunter and offers him assistance? (…)

(...) Rick arrived at the indicated door, saw an ink-written note tacked to it reading MISS LUFT PRIVATE, and knocked. “Come in.” He entered. The girl sat at her dressing table, a much-handled clothbound score open on her knees, marking here and there with a ballpoint pen. She still wore her costume and makeup, except for the wimple; that she had set down on its rack. “Yes?”she said, looking up. The stage makeup enlarged her eyes; enormous and hazel, they fixed on him and did not waver. “I am busy, as you can see.” Her English contained no remnant of an accent. Rick said, “You compare favorably to Schwarzkopf.” “Who are you?” Her tone held cold reserve—and that other cold, which he had encountered in so many androids. Always the same: great intellect, ability to accomplish much, but also this. He deplored it. And yet, without it, he could not track them down. “I’m from the San Francisco Police Department,” he said. “Oh?” The huge and intense eyes did not flicker, did not respond. “What are you here about?” Her tone, oddly, seemed gracious. Seating himself in a nearby chair, he unzipped his briefcase. “I have been sent here to administer a standard personality-profile test to you. It won’t take more than a few minutes.” “Is it necessary?” She gestured toward the big clothbound score. “I have a good deal I must do.” Now she had begun to look apprehensive. “It’s necessary.” He got out the Voigt-Kampff instruments, began setting them up. “An IQ test?” “No. Empathy.” “I’ll have to put on my glasses.” She reached to open a drawer of her dressing table. “If you can mark the score without your glasses, you can take this test. I’ll show you some pictures and ask you several questions. Meanwhile—” He got up and walked to her, and, bending, pressed the adhesive pad of sensitive grids against her deeply tinted cheek. “And this light,” he said, adjusting the angle of the pencil beam, “and that’s it.” “Do you think I’m an android? Is that it?” Her voice had faded almost to extinction. “I’m not an android. I haven’t even been on Mars; I’ve never even seen an android!” Her elongated lashes shuddered involuntarily; he saw her trying to appear calm. “Do you have information that there’s an android in the cast? I’d be glad to help you, and if I were an android would I be glad to help you?” “An android,” he said, “doesn’t care what happens to another android. That’s one of the indications we look for.” “Then,” Miss Luft said, “you must be an android.” That stopped him; he stared at her. “Because,” she continued, “your job is to kill them, isn’t it? You’re what they call—” She tried to remember. “A bounty hunter,” Rick said. “But I’m not an android.” “This test you want to give me.” Her voice, now, had begun to return. “Have you taken it?” “Yes.” He nodded. “A long, long time ago; when I first started with the department.” “Maybe that’s a false memory. Don’t androids sometimes go around with false memories?” Rick said, “My superiors know about the test. It’s mandatory.” “Maybe there was once a human who looked like you, and somewhere along the line you killed him and took his place. And your superiors don’t know.” She smiled. As if inviting him to agree. “Let’s get on with the test,” he said, getting out the sheets of questions. “I’ll take the test,” Luba Luft said, “if you’ll take it first.” Again he stared at her, stopped in his tracks. “Wouldn’t that be more fair?” she asked. “Then I could be sure of you. I don’t know; you seem so peculiar and hard and strange.” She shivered, then smiled again. Hopefully. (...)

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