"Dick, Philip K - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dick Phillip K)

has an animal of some sort. Graveson has that chicken over there." He gestured north.
"Oakes and his wife have that big red dog that barks in the night." He pondered. "I think Ed
Smith has a cat down in his apt; Ч at least he says so, but no one's ever seen it. Possibly
he's just pretending."
Going over to his sheep, Rick bent down, searching in the thick white wool Ч the fleece at
least was genuine Ч until he found what he was looking for: the concealed control panel of
the mechanism. As Barbour watched he snapped open the panel covering, revealing it.
"See?" he said to Barbour. "You understand now why I want your colt so badly?"
After an interval Barbour said, "You poor guy. Has it always been this way?"
"No," Rick said, once again closing the panel covering of his electric sheep; he
straightened up, turned, and faced his neighbor. "I had a real sheep, originally. My wife's
father gave it to us outright when he emigrated. Then, about a year ago, remember that time I
took it to the vet Ч you were up here that morning when I came out and found it lying on its
side and it couldn't get up."
"You got it to its feet," Barbour said, remembering and nodding. "Yeah, you managed to
lift it up but then after a minute or two of walking around it fell over again."
Rick said, "Sheep get strange diseases. Or put another way, sheep get a lot of diseases
but the symptoms are always the same; the sheep can't get up and there's no way to tell how
serious it is, whether it's a sprained leg or the animal's dying of tetanus. That's what mine
died of; tetanus."
"Up here?" Barbour said. "On the roof?"
"The hay," Rick explained. "That one time I didn't get all the wire off the bale; I left a piece
and Groucho Ч that's what I called him, then Ч got a scratch and in that way contracted
tetanus. I took him to the vet's and he died, and I thought about it, and finally I called one of
those shops that manufacture artificial animals and I showed them a photograph of Groucho.
They made this." He indicated the reclining ersatz animal, which continued to ruminate
attentively, still watching alertly for any indication of oats. "It's a premium job. And I've put as
much time and attention into caring for it as I did when it was real. But Ч " He shrugged.
"It's not the same," Barbour finished.
"But almost. You feel the same doing it; you have to keep your eye on it exactly as you did
when it was really alive. Because they break down and then everyone in the building knows.
I've had it at the repair shop six times, mostly little malfunctions, but if anyone saw them Ч for
instance one time the voice tape broke or anyhow got fouled and it wouldn't stop baaing Ч
they'd recognize it as a mechanical breakdown." He added, "The repair outfit's truck is of
course marked 'animal hospital something.' And the driver dresses like a vet, completely in
white." He glanced suddenly at his watch, remembering the time. "I have to get to work," he
said to Barbour. "I'll see you this evening."
As he started toward his car Barbour called after him hurriedly, "Um, I won't say anything to
anybody here in the building."
Pausing, Rick started to say thanks. But then something of the despair that Iran had been
talking about tapped him on the shoulder and he said, "I don't know; maybe it doesn't make
any difference."
"But they'll look down on you. Not all of them, but some. You know how people are about
not taking care of an animal; they consider it immoral and anti-empathic. I mean, technically
it's not a crime like it was right after W.W.T. but the feeling's still there."
"God," Rick said futilely, and gestured empty-handed. "I want to have an animal; I keep
trying to buy one. But on my salary, on what a city employee makes Ч " If, he thought, I could
get lucky in my work again. As I did two years ago when I managed to bag four andys during
one month. If I had known then, he thought, that Groucho was going to die . . . but that had
been before the tetanus. Before the two-inch piece of broken, hypodermic-like baling wire.