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He knocked gently on the door. The strumming stopped.
"Yes?"
"May I come in?"
"Uh-huh."
He pushed the door open and entered. Dan was sprawled on the bed. The instrument was nowhere in sight. Underneath, probably.
"That was real pretty," he said. "What were you playing?"
"Just some sounds. I don't know."
"Why'd you stop?"
"You don't like it."
"I never said that."
"I can tell."
He sat down beside him and squeezed his shoulder.
"Well, you're wrong," he said. "Everybody's got something they like to do. With me, it's my work." Then, finally, "You scared me, Dan. I don't know how it happens that machines sometimes go crazy when you come around--and things I don't understand sometimes scare me. But I'm not really mad at you. I just sound that way when I'm startled."
Dan rolled onto his side and looked up at him. He smiled weakly.
"You want to play something for me? I'll be glad to listen."
The boy shook his head.
"Not just now," he said.
Michael looked about the room, at the huge shelf of picture books, at the unopened erector set. When he looked back at Dan, he saw that the boy was rubbing his wrist.
"Hurt your hand?" he asked.
"Uh-uh. It just sort of throbs--the mark--sometimes."
"How often?"
"Whenever--something like that--happens."
He gestured toward the door and the entire external world.
"It's going away now," he added.
He took hold of the boy's wrist, examined the dark dragon-shape upon it.
"The doctor said it was nothing to worry about--no chance of it ever turning into anything bad...."
"It's all right now."
Michael continued to stare for several moments. Finally, he squeezed the hand, lowered it and smiled.
"Anything you want, Dan?" he asked.
"No. Uh... Well--some books."
Michael laughed.
"That's one thing you like, isn't it? Okay, maybe we can stop by a bookstore later and see what they've got."
Dan finally smiled.
"Thank you."
Michael punched his shoulder lightly and rose.
"... And I'll stay out of your office, Dad."
He squeezed his shoulder again and left him there on the bed. As he headed back toward his office, he heard a soft, rapid strumming begin.
When the boy was twelve years old he built a horse. It stood two hands high and was moved by a spring-powered clockwork mechanism. He had worked after hours at the smithy forging the parts, and on his own time in the shed he had built behind his parents' place, measuring, grinding and polishing gears. Now it pranced on the floor of that shed, for him and his audience of one--Nora Vail, a nine-year-old neighbor girl.
She clapped her hands as it slowly turned its head, as if to regard them.
"It's beautiful, Mark! It's beautiful!" she said. "There's never been anything like it--except in the old days."
"What do you mean?" he said quickly.
"You know. Like long ago. When they had all sorts of clever devices like that."
"Those are just stories," he said. Then, after a time, "Aren't they?"
She shook her head, pale hair dancing.
"No. My father's passed by one of the forbidden places, down south by Anvil Mountain. You can still see all sorts of broken things there without going in--things people can't make anymore." She looked back at the horse, its movements now slowing. "Maybe even things like that."
"That's--interesting..."he said. "I didn't realize--and there's still stuff left?"
"That's what my father said."
Abruptly, she looked him straight in the eye.
"You know, maybe you'd better not show this to anybody else," she said.
"Why not?"
"People might think you've been there and learned some of the forbidden things. They might get mad."
"That's dumb," he said, just as the horse fell onto its side. "That's real dumb."
But as he righted it, he said, "Maybe I'll wait till I have something better to show them. Something they'll like...."
The following spring, he demonstrated for a few friends and neighbors the flotation device he had made, geared to operate a floodgate in the irrigation system. They talked about it for two weeks, then decided against installing it themselves. When the spring runoff occurred--and later, when the rains came--there was some local flooding, not too serious. They only shrugged.
"I'll have to show them something even better," he told Nora. "Something they'll have to like."
"Why?" she asked.
He looked at her, puzzled.
"Because they have to understand," he said.
"What?"
"That I'm right and they're wrong, of course."
"People don't usually go for that sort of thing," she said.
He smiled.
"We'll see."
When the boy was twelve years old, he took his guitar with him one day--as he had on many others--and visited a small park deep in the steel, glass, plastic and concrete-lined heart of the city where his family now resided.
He patted a dusty synthetic tree and crossed the unliving turf past holograms of swaying flowers, to seat himself upon an orange plastic bench. Recordings of birdsongs sounded at random intervals through hidden speakers. Artificial butterflies darted along invisible beams. Concealed aerosols released the odors of flowers at regular intervals.
He removed the instrument from its case and tuned it. He began to play.
One of the fake butterflies passed too near, faltered and fell to the ground. He stopped playing and leaned forward to examine it. A woman passed and tossed a coin near his feet. He straightened and ran a hand through his hair, staring after her. The disarrayed silver-white streak that traced his black mop from forehead to nape fell into place again.
He rested the guitar on his thigh, chorded and began an intricate right-hand style he had been practicing. A dark form--a real bird--suddenly descended, to hop about nearby. Dan almost stopped playing at the novel sight. Instead, he switched to a simpler style, to leave more attention for its movements.
Sometimes at night he played his guitar on the roof of the building where birds nested, beneath stars twinkling faintly through the haze. He would hear them twittering and rustling about him. But he seldom saw any in the parks--perhaps it was something in the aerosols--and he watched this one with a small fascination as it approached the failed butterfly and seized it in its beak. A moment later, it dropped it, cocked its head, pecked at it, then hopped away. Shortly thereafter, the bird was airborne once again, then gone.
Dan reverted to a more complex pattern, and after a time he began singing against the noises of the city. The sun passed redly overhead. A wino, sprawled beneath the level of the holograms, sobbed softly in his sleep. The park vibrated regularly with the passage of underground trains. After several lapses, Dan realized that his voice was changing.