New Characters
Pris Stratton: a new tenant in Isidore’s building who turns out to be an android.

Summary
Isidore makes his way to the apartment where he can hear the sounds of Buster Friendly announcing his upcoming exposé on a television. Isidore’s knock on the apartment door is answered by the immediate silencing of the television. Confident that someone is in the apartment, Isidore announces himself. In response, a timid female opens the door. Sensing her fear and timidity, Isidore notes that she must be startled at the realization that she is not the only tenant in the building. Isidore’s excitement at finally having a neighbor seems to restore confidence in the female. She becomes visibly relaxed after Isidore assures her that he is the only other tenant in the building.

Isidore awkwardly attempts to make conversation by asking her for her opinions on Buster Friendly. She responds that she doesn’t know who he is and then recoils at her own response. Finding it strange that anyone on Earth was unaware of Friendly, Isidore asks where she came from. She doesn’t offer an answer but claims that she’ll be ready for company at a later time, after she’s had the chance to move in. Isidore offers his help with this task, but she declines and insists that she’ll gather items from the abandoned apartments within the building. Isidore cautions her against doing this due to the concept of "kipple" a belief that the useless objects left over from the evacuation of Earth will eventually outnumber the items still treasured by its inhabitants. Isidore claims that he is constantly struggling against the “kipple-ization” of his own apartment, and that simply borrowing items from other apartments will only result in the defeat of this struggle. He compares this to the struggle inherent in Mercerism to overcome the inclination of the universe towards ultimate deterioration. The female remarks that she doesn’t see the correlation between the two, which prompts Isidore to ask whether or not she has an empathy box. To this the female slowly responds that she left this possession behind when she moved in the hopes of finding one in her new apartment. Isidore finds her lack of attachment to the empathy box strange and explains that the empathy box is the only way to make real contact with other humans regardless of whether or not a person is considered to be a special. The female responds by claiming that this aspect of Mercerism seems to be a major weakness to its validity.

Isidore turns to leave, and the female stops him and explains the she does, in fact, need him to help her with her move. Isidore invites her to have dinner with him, an offer she declines. When asked by Isidore, the female says that her name is Rachel Rosen. Isidore identifies the connection between her name and the Rosen Association’s fame as the most prominent manufacturer of androids for all of the colonization programs. The female becomes defensive, and she eventually corrects her previous statement to say that her name is actually Pris Stratton.

Analysis
Chapter Six returns to Isidore, a special who lives in isolation in an abandoned apartment building. His diminished mental abilities and resulting classification as a special are only briefly alluded to in this chapter when he encounters a woman in his building. This chapter also introduces the concept of “kipple” and a comparison of its inevitable dominance to the devastation against which Mercer constantly struggles. Kipple is described as the ever-growing mass of decaying items left over after the emigration of humans from Earth. As more humans emigrate from Earth, leaving behind large quantities of their once valued possessions, more kipple amasses. Isidore describes his struggle to keep the kipple from taking over his own apartment. He then likens this struggle to the struggle Mercer maintains against the inevitable deterioration of all things living. According to Isidore, the kipple will eventually win.