Jesuit priest and robot mule?

[John A W Brown]

Many years ago I was reading through my local library Sci-Fi book shelves. One short story was memorable and I would like to find it again. The points that stuck in my memory, are that a human galactic civilisation discovered an artefact on a barren planet. A science officer was sent to investigate, who was a Jesuit priest. The planetary conditions were not possible for the technology of flight and had to be carried out on foot. The man was given a high tech AI robot in the form of a six legged mule (horse) which had the usual gimmick factors, as it had GPS, limitless power and conversation. The story based itself on the idea that the artefact could prove / disprove Christianity. The conversations between the two characters robot and priest were one reason my memory of this short story are so vivid. The robot provided the author with a "doubting Thomas" character to this priests search for proof of Christianity. Please help me find this great story again.

 

[Michael Colton]

I have no idea, but I kind of want to read that.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Ditto

 

[mosaix]

I certainly rings a bell. Could it have been in the Best SF series edited by Edmund Crispin? I've got the whole series - it might take some time to find. Any idea of the year or the title?

 

[John A W Brown]

Well it would been around 1971 when I was 15, whoops giving away my age here. It was in a collection if I can remember and it was most likely in the Scottish library system files? The lack of a title and the author is the reason I have not been able to find it myself.

 

[zaltys13]

I haven't read the story but others can follow where I have failed. The Religion and Science Fiction Wiki page was no help. I tried Science Fiction Anthologies 1970-72 all over the place and had no luck, I narrowed the field on the Science fiction Encyclopaedia (an invaluable resource) to donkeys and robots and mules and discourse and Jesuits and six legged horses etc. etc. This author though sounded promising, again from the Science Fiction Encyclopaedia, Gordon R Dickson. Never read his work myself but I shall now seek it out.

Hope you find your story.

 

[j d worthington]

Frankly, with a few differences in detail, it sounds very much like Anthony Boucher's "The Quest for Saint Aquin", which is included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 1: 1929-1964, ed. by Robert Silverberg. This was published in 1970, and is an excellent collection of some of the "great" stories from the era before the institution of the Nebula Awards....

 

[John A W Brown]

Mr Worthington I do believe you got it. I certainly remember all these stories and just the sort of thing the library used to get in. Amazon has this winging to me just now from a UK book store. The Amazon.com listed the contents and it is a fondly remembered list of stories. Anyway its been too long since I read through "Flowers for Algernon -- Daniel Keyes", "The Nine Billion Names of God -- Arthur C. Clarke" and "Nightfall -- Isaac Asimov". Thank you all I will complete this book quest after reading the stories.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I remembered vaguely the story. I thought it a little silly, though fun to read (as I didn't think Christianity was provable or falsifiable even during my Atheistic Communist phase). But I may have read it in some other compilation in the late 1960s / early 1970s.

The collection sounds excellent.