Do Golems Dream of Clay Sheep?

Sir Richard Deckard was tending to his sheep. As he did this, he tried to concentrate on the empathic ideal which the priests said could only be achieved by tending for animals, but he could not do it, because he knew deep down that this sheep was not truly a part of the Lord's creation. But then, ever since the plague which had struck the kingdom twenty years ago, there were very few real animals left in the kingdom.

"Hallo". Sir Richard turned to see his friend, Harbin, who looked very excited. "My mare is pregnant," he announced proudly.

Sir Richard was impressed. "Would you be interested in selling me her colt?"

"No way," said Harbin. "It's precious! Besides, you've got this nice sheep. Most people would envy that."

Sir Richard felt embarrassed. He turned to Harbin and whispered. "It's clay!"

Harbin turned white. "Clay? Where did you get such an abomination against the Creator?"

"The rabbis sell them cheap."

Harbin sniffed. "Dealing with a Jew? Nothing good will come of that."

"Please," said Sir Richard, "this entire kingdom deals with Jews with all the time. Where do you think we get all those golems that work in our precious salt mines?"

"That's different," said Harbin. "And anyway, we don't let the golems anywhere near our kingdom."

Sir Richard couldn't think of an answer for that, so he sighed and went back to his sheep.

* * *

But that very day, a messenger brought some exciting news to the castle:

Four golems had escaped from the salt mines and were on their way to the Royal capital of Wivonia. The idea was unthinkable. Of course, everyone knew that golems were necessary, or at least most everyone. There was a certain sect within the church that declared it heresy to create life without the aid of God, and while the people of Wivonia generally agreed in principle, very few were religious enough to actually suggest either making human beings work in the salt mines, or worse, giving up the income from the salt mines altogether.

But as Harbin had pointed out, that was the salt mines. The idea of golems actually walking around and living among the decent people of the kingdom was another idea entirely and a terrifying idea at that.

Thus, in short order, a royal decree was announced. "A reward of 1,000 gold crowns will be issued for each one of the golems slain."

It caused quite a bit of excitement, and Sir Richard was one of the most excited. It occurred to him that 4,000 gold crowns would be enough money to buy a live animal, not a clay one. So with that in mind, he sheathed his sword and went to visit the the old rabbi who had sold him the sheep.

* * *

"It really is not our fault," protested the rabbi. "We design the golems to help people. We cannot help it when they go astray like this.

"Of course, it is not your fault," said Sir Richard. "But it is a serious problem. Is it true that the golems cannot feel empathy?"

"God has not breathed on them," said the rabbi, "so perhaps not."

"I was told long ago, that there is a way to tell if someone is a golem," said Sir Richard. "You have to stare directly into its eyes and ask it something that will make a human feel empathy. If it's human, their eyes will grow big, but if it's not, the eyes remain the same."

The rabbi nodded. "You might want to try it, before you actually go out hunting for golems with it."

Sir Richard shrugged. "Very well," he gazed at the rabbi. "Imagine you raised a sheep from the time it was a lamb, to the time it was a healthy ewe, but then one day, you happened to look the other way and it ate a piece of your garbage which caused it to keel over and die."

"That would be terrible," said the rabbi, but Sir Richard was less impressed by the answer then by the fact that the rabbi's eyes did indeed grow just a tiny bit bigger. Even Jews can feel empathy, he thought
"But," said the rabbi, "you didn't really think I was a golem, did you? Try it again." He turned and called into the next room, "Rachel, sweetheart, could you come here?"

A beautiful young Jewess entered the room. "My niece, Rachel," said the Rabbi. "Why don't you test her?"

Sir Richard turned to the girl, who had the brightest and most beautiful dark eyes that he had ever seen, and asked her the same question. "Oh," she said. "That would be sad. . ." but she sounded more confused then sad, and Sir Richard noticed that her eyes remained the same.

He glanced at the Rabbi, who said, "Wait! Rachel, leave us darling." She dutifully left the room.

"Your niece is a--?"

"Please," said the Rabbi, "even she does not know. It's one of the things we can do with a special kind of charm. We can not only give the golem life. We can give it memories of an entire life."

"But not empathy."

"No," said the Rabbi, "no charm can do that. Look, you will not tell about her will you?"

Sir Richard laughed cynically. "As long as nobody offers me a reward for her, I may as well let her live."

"How Christian!" said the Rabbi with just a hint of irony.

Sir Richard decided to ignore that.

* * *

He had heard rumors that one of the female golems who escaped was a snake dancer, and there were reports of a new snake dancing act appearing in one of the outer villages. When he got to the village square, he saw that there was indeed a huge crowd gathered around what appeared to be an entertainment wagon.

"Come right in!" called the barker. "See the lovely dancer, Madame Esmerelda, perform her highly dangerous dance of the venomous snake."

Highly venomous, my left ear, thought Sir Richard. That snake is probably clay.--Who could possibly afford a live snake after the plague?-- but he watched as the strikingly beautiful Madame Esmerelda stepped on to the stage with a lovely green snake around her neck.

When the dance ended, and the crowd had thrown money at the stage. Sir Richard could not resist stepping forward. "Madame," he said, "is that a real snake?"

The dancer looked astonished. "Of course, sir."
,
With one quick stroke, Sir Richard plunged his sword into the snake cutting it in two. The crowd screamed, briefly, in terror. But the snake instantly dissolved into gray dust, and they realized that it was nothing more then a clay snake, but still they had felt some empathy. Sir Richard's eyes were not on the crowd, but on Madame Esmerelda, specifically her eyes which had not grown a bit when the crowd screamed in terror.

He swung his sword again. This time, bringing it directly on to Madame Esmerelda's neck. Her head tumbled off, but instead of blood, more gray dust spilled out.

There was another cry from the crowd and Sir Richard realized that it was because the barker had sprinted away from the village square and escaped.

* * *

Sir Richard felt good as the royal paymaster counted out his 1,000 gold crowns. "You have done the kingdom an excellent service, sir, but of course, there are still four more golems which need to be slain."

Sir Richard was puzzled. "Don't you mean three more golems?"

"Ah," said the paymaster, "you must not have heard the latest proclamation. Another one came from that Rabbi Chelm."

"Rabbi Chelm?"

"Right. Apparently, that old Jew was keeping a golem in his house and telling people that she was his niece. Well, the joke is on him now. She went mad and is out loose somewhere in the town. Anyway, not only will the crown pay 1,000 crowns for slaying her, but Rabbi Chelm is so embarrassed that he is willing to pay another 1,000 gold crowns of his own."

Sir Richard thought about that. If he slew Rachel and the remaining three golems, the total would be 6,000 gold crowns. Forget about a new sheep! That would be enough to buy a live horse. He decided that it was time to sharpen his sword.

* * *

He was just coming out of the castle when he heard a familiar voice call, "Freeze!"

He turned to see a man which he recognized as the barker from the fair. He was pointing a large crossbow at Sir Richard's chest, and standing out of range of Sir Richard's sword. Sir Richard decided to invoke chivalry. "You would not use a bow to slay a man armed only with a sword?"

The barker laughed. "I cannot even feel empathy. What makes you think that I would care about chivalry?"

He had a point there. Asking a golem to observe chivalry did not make much sense. So this was it. Sir Richard thought that he would soon die. Was his soul prepared? He was not sure.

Just then, something whizzed through the air as the barker fell forward and died. He had a dagger in his back and gray dust was emerging from the wound. Sir Richard realized that the dagger had been thrown by a dark figure dressed in black. As he looked closer, he saw that it was Rachel.

"Rachel?" he asked. "Why did you do that?"

Rachel paused. "I am not sure. . .I do not really know. . ." Finally, she said, "I am not real."

"I know," said Sir Richard gently.

"But that cannot be," she said tears forming in her eyes.

Well this should be easy, thought Sir Richard. I can slay her right now, before she can blink, and I will be 2,000 crowns richer (not to mention another 1,000 that he could probably claim for the barker). So why didn't he do it? Something was stopping him. Chivalry perhaps? Except that Chivalry was not supposed to extend to golems.

Whatever the reason, he put his sword back in its sheath. "We had best leave here," he said. "Many people want to kill you."

He found an inn near the lower part of Wivonia, and the two stayed in a room. "It still seems wrong," said Rachel as kicked off her shoes and loosened the belt around her dress. "I remember when I was a young girl. I remember that I lived on a farm with my parents before they died and I came to live with my uncle."

"That did not really happen," said Sir Richard. "The rabbis just planted that memory in your brain."

"It cannot be. I remember the farm with the horses and the sheep and sometimes I even still have dreams about them."

"Were they clay sheep?" said Sir Richard cynically.

Rachel looked at him with a cold expression. "Did you ever wonder why you are so good at finding golems and killing them?"

Sir Richard shrugged. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well, for one thing, you know that us golems are very good at finding each other. We can sense things that you humans cannot sense. It is how I found that barker attacking you."

"So?"

"So, if your king was really wise he would use one of us to slay golems. He would have my uncle design a golem specfically for the purpose of killing other golems. It would do the job far better than a human."

"Well, that would involve a violation of church policy--"

"But are you sure they have not done it already, anyway?"

Sir Richard choked as he realized what Rachel was saying. "I am not a golem," he said quietly.

"What makes you so certain of that?"

Sir Richard laughed. "For one thing, I know that I was not simply created from clay. I have very clear memories of the time when I was a boy--" he stopped himself and looked at Rachel who was smiling triumphantly.

"It. . .is not the same," he said evenly.

There was a silent pause.

Finally, Sir Richard said, "I know another reason that I am not a golem. I feel empathy."

"Do you?" asked Rachel.

"Of course. In fact, why do you suppose that I brought you here instead of slaying you instantly?" He paused again and put an arm around her. "I feel empathy for you."

She did not move away from the embrace, but actually seemed to move into his arms. "And why," she asked, "do you think that I saved your life in the first place? I feel empathy for you."

Her lips fell on his lips and the next thing the two knew they were removing each other's clothes.

* * *

When Deckard awoke the next morning, Rachel's naked body was still lying sleepily next to him. The fleshy pink skin did not look anything like clay, but he told himself that it was.

He was just pulling on his clothes when there was a loud thump at the door. His move was to grab his sword, because it could very well be some other hunter trying to slay Rachel, or it could be worse. The door came crashing open and two people entered. The first was a tall Amazonian woman dressed in armor and wielding a huge battleaxe. The second was a regal man dressed all in black.

The man spoke first. "Sir Richard Deckard. I am honored to meet you. You have been quite a thorn in our side for some time. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Rory, until recently I was the chief foreman of the salt mines in Silania, and this is my goodwoman, Pria. I would be careful with her. She was designed for mine security."

"So, you admit that you're the golems, I have been searching for," said Sir Richard.

"We admit that we are golems, but do not expect that knowledge to do you any good." Rory glowered. "At least, we can admit that we are golems. Unlike her," he glanced at Rachel on the bed. "It must be terrible," he said morosely. "To not know. To have no way of knowing if one's entire memories actually happened." Now, he looked at Sir Richard. "What is that uncertainty like?"

"I would not know," said Sir Richard quietly.

"Oh, but wouldn't you? After all, you have no way of knowing whether you are the great knight, Sir Richard or the golem designed to destroy other golems. I almost feel sorry for you."

Sir Richard smiled at that. "You can't feel sorry for me or anyone else."

Rory snapped his fingers and laughed. "I keep forgetting that! Oh well, enough with the small talk! Kill him, Pria."

Pria let out a war cry and ran at Sir Richard with her axe. Sir Richard parried her blow with his sword and the two clashed for several minutes forcing each other back and forth through the room.

At the back of the room, there was a doorway which led out onto a balcony. The two dueled until they passed out through onto the balcony. Then there was a loud crash, as they both went too close to the edge.

Sir Richard managed to grab onto a piece of the ledge which was hanging down, but Pria fell below and Sir Richard could just see the cloud of dust which formed when her body hit.

But he couldn't worry about her now. He was stuck, and he realized that he did not have the strength to pull himself bac up. His hands were getting slippery and he felt that he would soon fall and die.

Just then, one of his hands felt something. It was another hand grabbing him and pulling him up back into the room of the inn. When he got there, he was astonished to see that the hand belonged to Rory.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

Rory looked at him solemnly. "I do feel sorry for you," he insisted.

Then, before Sir Richard could say anything else, Rory ran forward and fell on his sword.

* * *

"There you are, three thousand gold crowns," said the Royal paymaster. "You are a wealthy man, Sir Richard. Of course, you would be even wealthier if you could only slay that one, Rachel."

"Unfortunately," said Sir Richard, "I am certain that she is no longer in the kingdom." And that was actually the truth, thought, Sir Richard. He was quite certain that Rachel was in a castle outside the kingdom. He did not tell the paymaster that he would soon go to that castle himself. It was in a place where a man and a woman could live quite comfortably ever after with 4,000 gold crowns.



If you have not already guessed, this story is a retelling of Philip K. Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep which you may most likely remember as the basis for the film Blade Runner. I was a little bit unsure whether to retell the book, the movie, or the director's cut of the movie which was released on video some years ago. I ended up borrowing a little from all three.