Then they were in a rocky chamber some four meters high and ten in diameter, and there on a sort of crude stone catafalque lay the uncorrupted body of a man.
Thomas slipped from the foam saddle, groaning as his ribs stabbed him, sank to his knees, and offered up a wordless hymn of gratitude. He smiled at the robass and hoped the psi factor could detect the elements of pity and triumph in that smile.
Then a frown of doubt crossed his face as he approached the body. “In canonization proceedings in the old time,” he said, as much to himself as to the robass, “they used to have what they called a devil’s advocate, whose duty it was to throw every possible doubt on the evidence.”
“You would be well cast in such a role Thomas,” said the robass.
“If I were,” Thomas muttered, “I’d wonder about caves. Some of them have peculiar properties of preserving bodies by a sort of mummification . . .”
The robass had clumped close to the catafalque. “This body is not mummified,” he said. “Do not worry.”
“Can the psi factor tell you that much?” Thomas smiled.
“No,” said the robass. “But I will show you why Aquin could never be mummified.”
He raised his articulated foreleg and brought its hoof down hard on the hand of the body. Thomas cried out with horror at the sacrilege—then stared hard at the crushed hand.
There was no blood, no ichor of embalming, no bruised flesh. Nothing but a shredded skin and beneath it an intricate mass of plastic tubes and metal wires.
The silence was long. Finally the robass said, “It was well that you should know. Only you of course.”
“And all the time,” Thomas gasped, “my sought-for saint was only your dream . . . the one perfect robot in man’s form.”
“His maker died and his secrets were lost,” the robass said. “No matter we will find them again.”
“All for nothing. For less than nothing. The ‘miracle’ was wrought by the Technarchy.”
“When Aquin died,” the robass went on, “and put died in quotation marks it was because he suffered some mechanical defects and did not dare have himself repaired because that would reveal his nature. This is for you only to know. Your report of course will be that you found the body of Aquin it was unimpaired and indeed incorruptible. That is the truth and nothing but the truth if it is not the whole truth who is to care. Let your infallible friend use the report and you will not find him ungrateful I assure you.”
“Holy Spirit, give me grace and wisdom,” Thomas muttered.
“Your mission has been successful. We will return now the Church will grow and your God will gain many more worshipers to hymn His praise into His nonexistent ears.”
“Damn you!” Thomas exclaimed. “And that would be indeed a curse if you had a soul to damn.”
“You are certain that I have not,” said the robass. “Question mark.”
“I know what you are. You are in very truth the devil, prowling about the world seeking the ciestruction of men. You are the business that prowls in the dark. You are a purely functional robot constructed and fed to tempt me, and the tape of your data is the tape of Screwtape.”
“Not to tempt you,” said the robass. “Not to destroy you. To guide and save you. Our best calculators indicate a probability of 51.5 per cent that within twenty years you will be the next Pope. If I can teach you wisdom and practicality in your actions the probability can rise as high as 97.2 or very nearly to certainty. Do not you wish to see the Church governed as you know you can govern it. If you report failure on this mission you will be out of favor with your friend who is as even you admit fallible at most times. You will lose the advantages of position and contact that can lead you to the cardinal’s red hat even though you may never wear it under the Technarchy and from there to—”
“Stop!” Thomas’ face was alight and his eyes aglow with something the psi factor had never detected there before. “It’s all the other way round, don’t you see? This is the triumph! This is the perfect ending to the quest!”
The articulated foreleg brushed the injured hand. “This question mark.”
“This is your dream. This is your perfection. And what came of this perfection? This perfect logical brain—this all-purpose brain, not functionally specialized like yours—knew that it was made by man, and its reason forced it to believe that man was made by God. And it saw that its duty lay to man its maker, and beyond him to his Maker, God. Its duty was to convert man, to augment the glory of God. And it converted by the pure force of its perfect brain!
“Now I understand the name Aquin,” he went on to himself. “We’ve known of Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, the perfect reasoner of the church. His writings are lost, but surely somewhere in the world we can find a copy. We can train our young men to develop his reasoning still further. We have trusted too long in faith alone; this is not an age of faith. We must call reason into our service—and Aquin has shown us that perfect reason can lead only to God!”
“Then it is all the more necessary that you increase the probabilities of becoming Pope to carry out this program. Get in the foam saddle we will go back and on the way I will teach you little things that will be useful in making certain—”
“No,” said Thomas. “I am not so strong as St. Paul, who could glory in his imperfections and rejoice that he had been given an imp of Satan to buffet him. No; I will rather pray with the
