Hendley didn't know. The only art fashioned in the Organization was created by efficient craftsmen applying known principles--acting under the direction of a computer. They worked as Hendley worked in the Architectural Center, by pushing buttons. Order, harmony, proportion, emphasis, representation, meaningful distortion, suspense, metaphor--the essential ingredients of the various arts were measurable quantities, reducible to mathematics. Or so Hendley had thought. What he saw now was a different art, created by another kind of artist. Free art, he thought with fresh excitement. It was also a disturbing art. Directly before him, dominating the lobby, was a dimensional painting. If he had thought of Freeman painting before, he would have envisioned representational art of trees and flowers and blazing skies. Or a concern with light, so essential a part of the free life. What he saw, vibrating with peculiar inner tension, was a gray mass which seemed to deny both light and color. It was a shapeless blob, pulsating with--Hendley groped for the nature of his response to the painting, seeking to find the cause through the effect; it was--pain. "Crass," someone said. "Vulgar." Another voice retorted, "Color isn't _everything_!" Words and phrases collided and ricocheted and split into fragments. "--isn't supposed to _mean_ anything. It's supposed to _be_." "Quite mad--that's the beauty of it...." "Genius...." "The inner planes are brilliantly suggested...." "Erotic, of course...." "Feeling!" "Essence...." "I don't _like_ it. That's the real criticism...." "--see how he used intersecting curves. Marvelous illusion, don't you think?" "Not _new_ at all...." "--so much life...." "... death!" Unnerved, Hendley turned away from the painting. Nik was beside him again, shoving a drink into his hand. Hendley took a brief swallow, needing it. The rising crescendo of party noise seemed to diminish as the drink coursed through his body. Its taste was unfamiliar to him, but before he could question it Nik was steering him through the crowd toward the escalator. "The main party is downstairs," Nik said. "You can see some of the exhibits along the way. The place is bigger than it looks, isn't it?" "Yes, from outside--" "It wasn't built as a gallery, but it's been converted. Used to be a service building of some kind. Say, I've got to smile at a few faces I know. See you downstairs on the bottom level. Take a look around as you go down."