[This story is probably better known in its incarnation as Ridley Scott's 1982 film Blade Runner , produced the same year as Philip K. Dick died. Mesmerizing and haunting as the movie is, it departs significantly from the story laid out in the book, omitting substantial subplots (the 'religion' of Mercerism), and only hinting at others (the place of synthetic animals and real animals in the post-apocalyptic culture). If you liked the movie, I think you will enjoy the book as much, maybe even more.
   In the excerpt below, which contains a minor spoiler, bounty-hunter-for-androids Rick Deckard of the San Francisco police department has just identified a young woman as an android, using the Voigt-Kampff Empathy Test, only to learn that she is actually the niece of Eldon Rosen, CEO of the Rosen Association, manufacturer of androids. Mr. Rosen has explained that his niece's apparently non-human responses to Deckard's test questions are due to her having grown up on a spacecraft, rather than on earth. - WA, 15 Mar 97]

   As Rachael started to close the door after herself and her uncle, Rick said starkly, "You managed to set me up perfectly. You have it on tape that I missed on you; you know that my job depends on the use of the Voigt-Kampff scale; and you own that goddamn owl."
   "Your owl, dear," Rachael said. "Remember? We'll tie your home address around its leg and have it fly down to San Francisco; it'll meet you there when you get off work."
   It, he thought. She keeps calling the owl it. Not her. "Just a second," he said.
   Pausing at the door, Rachael said, "You've decided?"
   "I want," he said, opening his briefcase, "to ask you one more question from the Voigt-Kampff scale. Sit down again."
   Rachael glanced at her uncle; he nodded and she grudgingly returned, seating herself as before. "What's this for?" she demanded, her eyebrows lifted in distaste - and wariness. He perceived her skeletal tension, noted it professionally.
   Presently he had the pencil of light trained on her right eye, and the adhesive patch again in contact with her cheek. Rachael stared into the light rigidly, the expression of extreme distaste still manifest.
   "My briefcase," Rick said as he rummaged for the Voigt-Kampff forms. "Nice, isn't it? Department issue."
   "Well, well." Rachael said remotely.
   "Babyhide." Rick said. He stroked the black leather surface of the briefcase. "One hundred percent genuine human babyhide." He saw the two dial indicators gyrate frantically. But only after a pause. The reaction had come, but too late. He knew the reaction period down to a fraction of a second, the correct reaction period; there should have been none. "Thanks, Miss Rosen," he said, and gathered together the equipment again; he had concluded his retesting. "That's all."
   "You're leaving?" Rachael asked.
   "Yes," he said. "I'm satisfied."
   Cautiously, Rachael said, "What about the other nine subjects?"
   "The scale has been adequate in your case," he answered. "I can extrapolate from that; it's clearly still effective." To Eldon Rosen, who slumped morosely by the door of the room, he said, "Does she know?" Sometimes they didn't. False memories had been tried various times, generally in the mistaken idea that through them, reaction to testing would be altered.
   Eldon Rosen said, "No. We programmed her completely. But I think toward the end she suspected." To the girl he said, "You guessed when he asked for one more try."
   Pale, Rachael nodded fixidly.

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