Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 15: The Goat
This chapter starts with the androids’ vote and ends with Rick dialing Rachael Rosen from a dark hovercar. In between, he buys a goat, has a real moment with his wife, gets a call from his boss, and talks to God. It’s a lot for one chapter.
The Vote
First, a quick look at the android side of things. Roy Baty, Irmgard, and Pris are deciding what to do about Isidore. Roy wants to kill him and run. Irmgard and Pris vote to stay. Their logic is simple: every android who tried blending in alone got caught. Polokov, Garland, Luba. All dead. At least with Isidore, they have a human ally. A “special” one, sure, but still someone who actually wants to help them.
Irmgard makes a great point. She says it’s not humans that get androids killed. It’s android arrogance. “It’s our goddamn superior intelligence!” she yells at Roy. They keep overthinking things, trusting their own cleverness, and that’s exactly what keeps failing them.
Roy gives in. He’s too tired to fight. And Isidore is happy. He genuinely believes he can make their stay on Earth pleasant. The guy has no idea what he’s gotten himself into.
Rick Goes Shopping
Now we switch to Rick. He’s done with work for the day. Three androids retired, bounty money in his pocket. But instead of going home, he heads to animal row. The big-time dealers with glass windows and flashy signs.
He walks in with three thousand dollars cash and asks about rabbits. The salesman, smooth as they come, immediately tries to upsell him. “Sir, you look more like a goat man to me.” That line made me laugh. It sounds exactly like every car salesman I’ve ever met. The guy pitches goats like they’re luxury vehicles. They’re loyal, they can eat radioactive food without dying, and they’ll butt anyone who tries to steal them.
Rick buys a big black Nubian female goat. Signs a payment contract, puts the entire bounty down, and suddenly he’s standing by his hovercar, shaking. He’s broke. He’s in debt. But he owns a living animal. A real one. For only the second time in his life.
Iran’s Reaction
Rick flies home expecting Iran to be angry. He’s already rehearsing excuses in his head. But when he tells her to come up to the roof, she guesses immediately. “You bought an animal.”
And her reaction is beautiful. She circles the cage, looking at the goat from every angle. “Is it really real?” she asks. When Rick confirms it, she kisses him and quotes an old Josef Strauss song: “My life is love and pleasure.” She wants to name the goat, tether her properly, run downstairs and give thanks to Mercer. Even their neighbor Bill Barbour congratulates them.
For a few minutes, everything is perfect. Rick and Iran are happy together, which honestly hasn’t happened much in this book. They’re a married couple admiring their new goat on the roof of their apartment building, and it feels normal and warm.
But then Iran asks about the money. And the mood shifts. The interest payments are brutal. Iran sees the contract and goes gray. She still loves the goat. But reality hits fast.
The Phone Call
Rick says he can transfer to a different desk. Maybe animal theft. Iran points out they need the bounty money or the goat gets repossessed. And right then, the vidphone rings.
Rick knows who it is before Iran picks up. He tries to hide in the bedroom, but it’s too late. Inspector Bryant’s face is already on the screen.
Bryant has a tail on two of the remaining three androids. Roy and the others moved to a new address, Conapt Building 3967-C, out in the suburbs. Bryant wants Rick to go tonight. Right now. Before they dig in and disappear.
Rick says he can’t. He’s done three already today. He’s exhausted. He needs rest.
Bryant doesn’t care. “By tomorrow they’ll be gone.”
So Rick agrees. What else can he do?
Here’s the thing that gets me. Rick tells Bryant his sheep is electric. Just drops it into the conversation, like it doesn’t matter anymore. A secret he’s been protecting for the entire book, and now he just says it. That’s how tired he is. That’s how much he’s stopped caring about keeping up appearances.
Mercer Speaks
Before he leaves, Rick does something unexpected. He takes Iran’s place at the empathy box. For the first time in weeks, he grabs the handles.
He finds himself in a desert. Weeds. No rain. And Mercer is standing right there in front of him. Not as a distant figure climbing a hill, but face to face.
Rick asks for help. Mercer says he can’t even save himself. “There is no salvation,” he says. But then he adds something that might be the most important line in the whole book: “Go and do your task, even though you know it’s wrong.”
Rick pushes back. Why should he? Mercer answers: “You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity.”
That’s heavy. And what makes it heavier is that Rick doesn’t find it comforting. He walks away from the empathy box bleeding from a rock that hit his ear, and tells Iran that Mercer is “just an old man climbing a hill to his death.” Iran asks, “Isn’t that the revelation?” Rick says he already has that revelation.
He knows what he has to do. He just doesn’t believe there’s any meaning in it.
The Call to Rachael
Rick heads to the roof, sits in his dark hovercar, and dials the Rosen Association. He asks for Rachael.
She isn’t surprised to hear from him. She predicted this. Rick needs help with three Nexus-6 androids, and he knows he can’t do it alone. Not tonight. Not in this state.
Rachael tries to put him off until tomorrow. Rick pushes back. Then something strange happens. Rick suggests they rent a hotel room together instead. He says he’ll give up on the remaining androids. Rachael agrees almost instantly and says she’ll fly down to San Francisco tonight.
It’s a weird ending. Rick sounds like a man who’s given up, but also like a man making a move. And Rachael agrees fast, maybe too fast. Something is happening between them that goes beyond bounty hunting, and I’m not sure either of them is being fully honest about their reasons.
What Stands Out
This chapter is really about what money can and can’t buy. Rick buys the goat to fix his depression, to restore his sense of self after the awful day with Phil Resch and the androids. And it works, for about twenty minutes. Then the phone rings and the world comes crashing back.
The conversation with Mercer is also one of those Philip K. Dick moments that sticks with you long after you close the book. There’s no easy answer. No divine rescue. Just an old man saying: yes, it’s wrong, and yes, you still have to do it. That’s life. Everywhere in the universe.
Rick ends the chapter driving toward a hotel to meet an android woman, with a bleeding ear and a goat on his roof. If that doesn’t capture the mood of this whole book, I don’t know what does.