"That's not true. Even animals — even eels and gophers and snakes and spiders — are sacred."

Pris, still regarding him fixedly, said, "So it can't be, can it? As you say, even animals are protected by law. All life. Everything organic that wriggles or squirms or burrows or flies or swarms or lays eggs or — " She broke off, because Roy Baty had appeared, abruptly throwing the door of the apartment open and entering; a trail of wire rustled after him.

"Insects," he said, showing no embarrassment at overhearing them, "are especially sacrosanct." Lifting a picture rom the wall of the living room he attached a small electronic device to the nail, stepped back, viewed it, then replaced the picture. "Now the alarm." He gathered up the trailing wire, which led to a complex assembly. Smiling his discordant smile, he showed the assembly to Pris and John Isidore. "The alarm. These wires go under the carpet; they're antennae. It picks up the presence of a — " He hesitated. "A mentational entity," he said obscurely, "which isn't one of us four."

"So it rings," Pris said, "and then what? He'll have a gun. We can't fall on him and bite him to death."

"This assembly," Roy continued, "has a Penfield unit built into it. When the alarm has been triggered it radiates a mood of panic to the — intruder. Unless he acts very fast, which he may. Enormous panic; I have the gain turned all the way up. No human being can remain in the vicinity more than a matter of seconds. That's the nature of panic: it leads to random circus-motions, purposeless flight, and muscle and neural spasms." He concluded, "Which will give us an opportunity to get him. Possibly. Depending on how good he is."

Isidore said, "Won't the alarm affect us?"

"That's right," Pris said to Roy Baty. "It'll affect Isidore."

"Well, so what," Roy said. And resumed his task of installation. "So they both go racing out of here panic-stricken. It'll still give us time to react. And they won't kill Isidore; he's not on their list. That's why he's usable as a cover."

Pris said brusquely, "You can't do any better, Roy?"

"No," he answered, "I can't."

"I'll be able to g-g-get a weapon tomorrow," Isidore spoke up.

"You're sure Isidore's presence here won't set off the alarm?" Pris said. "After all, he's — you know."

"I've compensated for his cephalic emanations," Roy explained. "Their sum won't trip anything; it'll take an additional human. Person." Scowling, he glanced at Isidore, aware of what he had said.

"You're androids," Isidore said. But he didn't care; it made no difference to him. "I see why they want to kill you," he said. "Actually you're not alive." Everything made sense to him, now. The bounty hunter, the killing of their friends, the trip to Earth, all these precautions.

"When I used the word 'human,"' Roy Baty said to Pris, "I used the wrong word."

"That's right, Mr. Baty," Isidore said. "But what does it matter to me? I mean, I'm a special; they don't treat me very well either, like for instance I can't emigrate." He found himself yabbering away like a folletto. "You can't come here; I can't — " He calmed himself.

After a pause Roy Baty said laconically, "You wouldn't enjoy Mars. You're missing nothing."

"I wondered how long it would be," Pris said to Isidore, "before you realized. We are different, aren't we?

"That's what probably tripped up Garland and Max Polokov," Roy Baty said. "They were so goddamn sure they could pass. Luba, too."

"You're intellectual," Isidore said; he felt excited again at having understood. Excitement and pride. "You think abstractly, and you don't — " He gesticulated, his words tangling up with one another. As usual. "I wish I had an IQ like you have; then I could pass the test, I wouldn't be a chickenhead. I think you're very superior; I could learn a lot from you."

After an interval Roy Baty said, "I'll finish wiring up the alarm." He resumed work.

"He doesn't understand yet," Pris said in a sharp, brittle, stentorian voice, "how we got off Mars. What we did there."

"What we couldn't help doing," Roy Baty grunted.

At the open door to the hall Irmgard Baty had been standing; they noticed her as she spoke up. "I don't think we have to worry about Mr. Isidore," she said earnestly; she walked swiftly toward him, looked up into his face. "They don't treat him very well either, as he said. And what we did on Mars he isn't interested in; he knows us and he likes us and an emotional acceptance like that — it's everything to him. It's hard for us to grasp that, but it's true." To Isidore she said, standing very close to him once again and peering up at him, "You could get a lot of money by turning us in; do you realize that?" Twisting, she said to her husband, "See, he realizes that but still he wouldn't say anything."

"You're a great man, Isidore," Pris said. "You're a credit to your race."

"If he was an android," Roy said heartily, "he'd turn us in about ten tomorrow morning. He'd take off for his job and that would be it. I'm overwhelmed with admiration." His tone could not be deciphered; at least Isidore could not crack it. "And we imagined this would be a friendless world, a planet of hostile faces, all turned against us." He barked out a laugh.

I'm not at all worried," Irmgard said.

'You ought to be seared to the soles of your feet," Roy said.

"Let's vote," Pris said. "As we did on the ship, when we had a disagreement."

"Well," Irmgard said, "I won't say anything more. But if we turn this down I don't think we'll find any other human being who'll take us in and help us. Mr. Isidore is — " She searched for the word.

"Special," Pris said.

FIFTEEN

Solemnly, and with ceremony, the vote was taken.

"We stay here," Irmgard said, with firmness. "In this apartment, in this building."

Roy Baty said, "I vote we kill Mr. Isidore and hide somewhere else." He and his wife — and John Isidore — now turned tautly toward Pris.

In a low voice Pris said, "I vote we make our stand here." She added, more loudly, "I think J.R.'s value to us outweighs his danger, that of his knowing. Obviously we can't live among humans without being discovered; that's what killed Polokov and Garland and Luba and Anders. That's what killed all of them."

"Maybe they did just what we're doing," Roy Baty said. "Confided in, trusted, one given human being who they believed was different. As you said, special."

"We don't know that," Irmgard said. "That's only a conjecture. I think they, they — " She gestured. "Walked around. Sang from a stage like Luba. We trust — I'll tell you what we trust that fouls us up, Roy; it's our goddamn superior intelligence!" She glared at her husband, her small, high breasts rising and falling rapidly. "We're so smart — Roy, you're doing it right now; goddamn you, you're doing it now!"

Pris said, "I think Irm's right."

"So we hang our lives on a substandard, blighted — " Roy began, then gave up. "I'm tired," he said simply. "It's been a long trip, Isidore. But not very long here. Unfortunately."

"I hope," Isidore said happily, "I can help make your stay here on Earth pleasant." He felt sure he could. It seemed to him a cinch, the culmination of his whole life — and of the new authority which he had manifested on the vidphone today at work.

As soon as he officially quit work that evening, Rick Deckard flew across town to animal row: the several blocks of big-time animal dealers with their huge glass windows and lurid signs. The new and horribly unique depression which had floored him earlier in the day had not left. This, his activity here with animals and animal dealers, seemed the only weak spot in the shroud of depression, a flaw by which he might be able to grab it and exorcise it. In the past, anyhow, the sight of animals, the scent of money deals with expensive stakes, had done much for him. Maybe it would accomplish as much now.