"Because the surroundings are congenial," said Frost. "I am going totry another medium: oil painting; and I am going to vary my techniquefrom that of pure representationalism."

"How will you achieve this variation?"

"By the principle of randomizing," said Frost. "I shall not attempt toduplicate the colors, nor to represent the objects according to scale.Instead, I have set up a random pattern whereby certain of these factorsshall be at variance from those of the original."

Frost had formulated the necessary instruments after he had left thedesert. He produced them and began painting the lake and the trees onthe opposite side of the lake which were reflected within it.

Using eight appendages, he was finished in less than two hours.

The trees were phthalocyanine blue and towered like mountains; theirreflections of burnt sienna were tiny beneath the pale vermilion of thelake; the hills were nowhere visible behind them, but were outlined inviridian within the reflection; the sky began as blue in the upperrighthand corner of the canvas, but changed to an orange as it descended,as though all the trees were on fire.

"There," said Frost. "Behold."

Mordel studied it for a long while and said nothing.

"Well, is it art?"

"I do not know," said Mordel. "It may be. Perhaps randomicity _is_the principle behind artistic technique. I cannot judge this workbecause I do not understand it. I must therefore go deeper, and inquireinto what lies behind it, rather than merely considering the techniquewhereby it was produced.

"I know that human artists never set out to create art, as such," hesaid, "but rather to portray with their techniquest some features ofobjects and their functions which they deemed significant."

"'Significant'? In what sense of the word?"

"In the only sense of the word possible under the circumstances: