Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick Page A

“Polokov didn’t show up for work today. No explanation. What’s he done, officer?”
    “If he should show up,” Rick said, “don’t tell him I was here asking about him. You understand?”
    “Yes, I understand,” Ackers said sulkily, as if his deep schooling in police matters had been derided.
    In the department’s beefed-up hovercar Rick next flew to Polokov’s apartment building in the Tenderloin. We’ll never get him, he told himself. They—Bryant and Holden—waited too long. Instead of sending me to Seattle, Bryant should have sicced me on Polokov—better still last night, as soon as Dave Holden got his.
    What a grimy place, he observed as he walked across the roof to the elevator. Abandoned animal pens, encrusted with months of dust. And, in one cage, a no longer functioning false animal, a chicken. By elevator he descended to Polokov’s floor, found the hall unlit, like a subterranean cave. Using his police A-powered sealed-beam light, he illuminated the hall and once again glanced over the onionskin carbon. The Voigt-Kampff test had been administered to Polokov; that part could be bypassed, and he could go directly to the task of destroying the android.
    Best to get him from out here, he decided. Setting down his weapons kit he fumbled it open, got out a nondirectional Penfield wave transmitter; he punched the key for catalepsy, himself protected against the mood emanation by means of a counterwave broadcast through the transmitter’s metal hull directed to him alone.
    They’re now all frozen stiff, he said to himself as he shut off the transmitter. Everyone, human and andy alike, in the vicinity. No risk to me; all I have to do is walk in and laser him. Assuming, of course, that he’s in his apartment, which isn’t likely.
    Using an infinity key, which analyzed and opened all forms of locks known, he entered Polokov’s apartment, laser beam in hand.
    No Polokov. Only semi-ruined furniture, a place of kipple and decay. In fact no personal articles: what greeted him consisted of unclaimed debris which Polokov had inherited when he took the apartment and which in leaving he had abandoned to the next—if any—tenant.
    I knew it, he said to himself. Well, there goes the first thousand dollars’ bounty; probably skipped all the way to the Antarctic Circle. Out of my jurisdiction; another bounty hunter from another police department will retire Polokov and claim the money. On, I suppose, to the andys who haven’t been warned, as was Polokov. On to Luba Luft.
    Back again on the roof in his hovercar he reported by phone to Harry Bryant. “No luck on Polokov. Left probably right after he lasered Dave.” He inspected his wristwatch. “Want me to pick up Kadalyi at the field? It’ll save time and I’m eager to get started on Miss Luft.” He already had the poop sheet on her laid out before him, had begun a thorough study of it.
    “Good idea,” Bryant said, “except that Mr. Kadalyi is already here; his Aeroflot ship—as usual, he says—arrived early. Just a moment.” An invisible conference. “He’ll fly over and meet you where you are now,” Bryant said, returning to the screen. “Meanwhile read up on Miss Luft.”
    “An opera singer. Allegedly from Germany. At present attached to the San Francisco Opera Company.” He nodded in reflexive agreement, his mind on the poop sheet. “Must have a good voice to make connections so fast. Okay, I’ll wait here for Kadalyi.” He gave Bryant his location and rang off.
    I’ll pose as an opera fan, Rick decided as he read further. I particularly would like to see her as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni. In my personal collection I have tapes by such old-time greats as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Lotte Lehmann and Lisa Della Casa; that’ll give us something to discuss while I set up my Voigt-Kampff equipment.
    His car phone buzzed. He picked up the receiver.
    The police operator said, “Mr. Deckard, a call for you from Seattle; Mr. Bryant said to put