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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't want 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 setting C it overcomes the threshold barring consciousness, as it does for me. Friendlily, because he felt well-disposed toward the world-his setting had been at D-he patted her bare, pale 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, 2021, 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 turned 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.

Empty apartments, Rick said. Sometimes he heard them at night when he was supposed to be asleep. And yet, for this day and age a one-half occupied conapt building rated high in the scheme of population density; out in what had been before the war the suburbs, one could find buildings entirely empty . . . ​or so he had heard. He had let the information remain secondhand; like most people he did not care to experience it directly.

At that moment, Iran said, when I had the TV sound off, I was in a 382 mood; I had just dialed it. So although I heard the emptiness intellectually, I didn't feel it. My first reaction consisted of being grateful that we could afford a Penfield mood organ. But t