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eBook Category: Science Fiction/Fantasy
eBook Description: WHO COULD LOVE A SEXLESS METAL MAN? That's the question that faces two very different women from two very different worlds in the final volume of this classic pulp magazine saga. Michael Flannigan had emerged victorious from his combat with a man who had usurped awesome alien powers. But Flannigan was human no longer. Instead, his brain had been transferred to the body of a towering gold robot! But that's not his biggest problem. Back on Earth, an evil empire has conquered the U.S. and subjugated its citizens as slaves. Only Flannigan's god-like powers can free the U. S. from its bondage. But when he passes back through the lens to Earth, Flannigan soon discovers all his powers are useless. For the enemy holds Flannigan's friends hostage and their lives are forfeit unless he surrenders immediately! "Prime adventure continues in the high standard and tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs!" wrote science fiction editor Ray Palmer when the Michael Flannigan Trilogy first appeared in a rival publication. Don't miss the off-the-wall, thought-provoking ending to this delicious and increasingly bizarre trilogy from the pen of veteran pulpster Stuart J. Byrne.

eBook Publisher: Renaissance E Books/PageTurner, Published: 2006
Fictionwise Release Date: August 2006

This eBook is part of the following series:

• Stuart J. Byrne's Flannigan Trilogy

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [1.1 MB], eReader (PDB) [128 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [109 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [97 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [157 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [163 KB], hiebook (KML) [288 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [236 KB], iSilo (PDB) [89 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [112 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [185 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [144 KB]
Words: 31202
Reading time: 89-124 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

When it first made its appearance it was somewhere between Earth's orbit and Mars, traveling outward, away from the sun. Thirty seconds later it had passed the orbit of Mars. In ten minutes it was somewhere near Jupiter. No telescope could have picked it up because its velocity surpassed that of light.

A portless, metallic ball streaking toward the edge of the solar system, emerged out of nothingness.

Earth had no such ships as this. Earth had built a few experimental moon rockets, but nothing more.

There had been only one semi-successful rocket expedition to the Moon. Three men had died, one had survived.

One man out of four. Michael Flannigan, a madman who was dying of radioactive poisoning as a result of exposure to the lunar surface--exposure especially among the craters. There had been one crater in particular. Rheingold, near the ageless shore of the Mare Imbrium. Flannigan had fought to return to Rheingold in the face of inevitable death.

There had been some delirious mention of a Lens--a Land of the Lens, and Mnir'sr Nikin'ra, queen of the Serin Ni. So they had let Flannigan go, in the battered rocket of the ill-fated first expedition. The cost of repairs and refueling had been worth it, because he radioed back further priceless readings concerning the unknown radiations of outer space.

And then he had disappeared. Two weeks had passed and no one had heard from Flannigan. Nor were they planning to send out another rocket until they could solve the problem of radioactive contamination on the Moon and sterility caused by hard radiation in outer space.

The world had wondered about poor, mad Flannigan, but the enigmatic Moon had not deigned to answer the riddle.

The golden robot turned to its twin, which sat motionless beside it before the viewplate and the control banks.

"You see?" it said. "Yours is not the only world. And the four suns of Gra'ghr are not the only stars. Before you are suns and worlds without end. Gra'ghr was surrounded by some sort of nebula, and now we have emerged from it. An unknown universe lies at our disposal, and all eternity."

"Flan'ri," said the other, "let us hope it will not be eternity until we find--"

"Don't say it. It may take us twice ten thousand years, and to dwell upon our need without fulfillment within the span of a human lifetime or two could lead to serious frustration--even in robots such as ourselves."

The other's photo-electric eyes, perfectly human in appearance, sought those of the first robot. "But I am afraid," it insisted. "What we seek is what we wanted when we were still human. Our love and the happiness we seek depends on emotions, which we lack. We cling to past desire and future hope only on the basis of our present memory. And memory can fade--even in robots. Flan'ri, pray Gur we can acquire human bodies soon."

The first robot looked its mate over for one brief moment. Bald, naked, sexless, gold-plated. Yet it must be regarded as a female, as Mnir'sr Nikin'ra of Serin-Gor. As for itself, the first robot remembered that it was a "he." On Gra'ghr, within the Lens, "he" had been Gurund Ritroon, Son of Gur the Avenger, alias Gon'ri the Warrior, alias Flanin'gan Kinri the Silent. Out here on the unknown star roads of eternity, "he," reverted in his mind to his old identity. His original identity. Michael Flannigan, of Earth.

But Earth he would never see again. Earth was lost forever beyond the mysterious barrier of the Lens. This was a lost universe, inside the Lens. Somewhere in this fathomless abyss he must find a world, or worlds, where perchance a human type of civilization flourished. And there, somehow, they would have to be patient and wait for the right opportunity to find two suitable bodies. He had no murderous intentions. Nor did he hope to use cadavers. In fact, it was impossible even to guess at the unimaginable circumstance which would satisfy all the necessary conditions.

But with a swift space ship that drew its energy from the stars, with imperishable robot bodies and endless years of time--

Swiftly, he rose to his feet, staring at the viewplate. Simultaneously, he threw the ship into deceleration that would have crushed a human to pulp.

"What is it, Flan'ri?" asked Mnir'ra.

Flannigan did not reply. If a robot could have emotions he had them now. It was as though his articulatory circuits had been shorted out. He could only stare ahead and decelerate.

"Is it that bright object out there?" she asked. "That globe with the rings around it?"

Mnir'ra, never having known the solar system, could not recognize an unmistakable signpost. She was looking at the ringed planet, Saturn...

If Flannigan had been in possession of his human emotions, he might have sworn aloud or perhaps called out to his Maker. He might have staggered, broken out in a cold sweat. Or his hair might have wanted to stand on end.

But he had neither emotions, hair, nor sweat. He could not emote, but he had his mind--and therefore his memory. Mentally he could be surprised and astounded. And he was all of that now as he looked at Saturn and held the controls at full deceleration.

"Mnir'ra," he said evenly, "something has happened. That wasn't a nebula we went through. Being robots built of tough, imperishable metal, we were unaware of our terrific inertia and velocity. We--our speed did something. Maybe when you get to the speed of light, or beyond it--"

"Flan'ri! Will you tell me what this is all about? What's happened?"

He looked at her, put one perfect hand on her gold-plated shoulder. "Beloved," he said, "we have passed through the Lens!"

Mnir'ra's robot form seemed to get even more rigid than it was normally. "You mean--"

"Yes. This is my universe, my own solar system! Mnir'ra, I've brought you back with me!"

Mnir'ra remained silent for a moment. Then she said, "And your own world? Where is that?"

For answer, Flannigan fingered controls on a smaller panel to his left. The viewplate spun, or appeared to. In another moment the scene outside came into focus, revealing at first the distant, glaring ball of the sun behind them. The viewplate shifted slightly, and several other bright bodies came into focus.

There was a bright, blue-green one that appeared to race upward at them as Flannigan applied electronic magnification. Soon Mnir'ra beheld a great globe that glowed in a silvery crescent halo of light. Most of it was in the shadow of night, but the sunlit crescent portion revealed, under the envelope of its atmosphere, the outlines of continents and magnificent seas.

"That is my home," said Flannigan. "This is Earth, the world that bore my original body of flesh and blood. It is teeming with billions of inhabitants. If our search is ever to be rewarded, it will be there."

Earth--Flannigan thought to himself. Earth, and things he had never hoped to see or know again. Things that he had sought to forget forever when he stood for the first time on the high rim of Rheingold, on the Moon--when was it?--a month ago, a lifetime, or eons past? He remembered those things--snow-white gulls gliding on the tangy air over the small blue bay of Mazatlan, colored sails in the sunset off Waikiki, the blinding whiteness of eternal snow mantling the Andean horizon across Lake Titicaca, the multi-laned automobile traffic on the Hollywood Freeway, the misty panorama of San Fernando Valley in the early morning seen from Mulholland Drive, the smell of fresh coffee, the warm breath and the soft lips of a blonde, blue-eyed girl ... He stopped his train of reminiscence. There were some things that a robot--

"Your whole life was really there, wasn't it?" said Mnir'ra, sounding remarkably feminine. "There must be many memories. Flan'ri, you never told me before, because to me you were the Godly emissary of Gur. You were Gurund Ritroon the Avenger. But here you were a normal human being. Was there a girl, a sweetheart--or a wife?"

There was a girl, yes. His fiance, Louise Daren. But all his life the ancient thing that was in his blood had responded to the secret call of the Lens. And he had succeeded at last in getting to the Moon and finding the Lens, which had received him and transported him into that hidden world where his destiny, fashioned eons before, could be fulfilled. Then, on his return to Earth, he had been near death, and sterile as well. He and Louise were hopelessly separated even before he made the plunge across the abyss a second time.

And now, how was he returning? As a robot. But that did not matter--nor did Louise. If he was returning to Earth in the time that he had known it, and Louise still lived? Her entire lifespan would be as the single tick of a clock compared to his. He had himself and Mnir'ra to think about. They had a mission, to find each other in life again, to find the happiness that fate had denied them in spite of a love that had leaped the chasm of incalculable ages, from one incarnation to another.

"You--love someone else?" asked Mnir'ra. "A girl on your own world?"

"Mnir'ra," he said to her, "as an ordinary Earth mortal I knew and loved a woman, and there are memories, of course. But how can they compare with that other memory--that night under the golden light of Lan Ba'na on the shore of the Barrier Sea below the ancient Temple of Gur when you came to me singing, wearing white flowers in your long, blue hair--our battles for Serin-Gor under the four suns of Gra'ghr, the skies filled with flaming death, ships blasting into pieces of wood and men, sails rising in flames from the fire brand and the rocket bombs, and you facing death beside me, my battles shoulder to shoulder with Djikn Kinri, your brother, like the time when we came to rescue you from Xlar'nr Marna'ri at Wur'tzoon--and my search in the Hills of the Sky for the lost temple of the Secret Gods. I could go on forever. Memories such as those are not mere recollections. They are a part of us, and they transcend all else. They will never die, Mnir'ra."