Quantum Illuminate

By Lloyd Martin

A strange set of people were behind the Mars mission.
Marq was the last of this family.
Can the present be changed by altering the past?
Because of the Grandfather Paradox, Marq is the only person able to travel back in time.
This paradox states that you cannot go back, then shoot your grandfather; because you would never have existed in the first place.
Nature's way of dealing with this is to allow time travel back, but if you go back to, say, 10 years old, when you get there, you will be 10, knowing only what you knew then. Marq gets around this by being very, very old. In fact he is older than Zeus.
Would we still have the same people around us if things in the past changed?
People disappear, then the quest is to find them.
There is a lot of true history here - then subtle changes are made.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lloyd Martin
• Release date: Sep 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005754457

Lloyd Martin

Worked for BAe for 20 years on Lightning (XN726), Canberra (Venezuela), Jaguar, Tornado. Went to be professional artist specialising in military aircraft. Finished work to nurse wife, during which time I began writing the first series of books: the Coniston Fowler trilogy. Since then I have written a trilogy of novellas about mans first landing on Mars, and a set of books of a James Bond type.

Book preview

Quantum Illuminate

Part Six

Of

Thrones of Mars

By

Lloyd R Martin

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

No reproduction is allowed without permission.

The right of Lloyd R R Martin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

Copyright © Lloyd R R Martin 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from the publisher.

This book is sold or presented subject to the condition that it shall not , by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent publisher.

Contents.

Prologue

Chapter 1 The Forgotten Soldiers

Chapter 2 The Primary Cause

Chapter 3 Martineau

Chapter 4 Potdam 1997

Chapter 5 Dusseldorf 1997

Chapter 6 Finders Keepers

Chapter 7 Visitors

Chapter 8 Three Shades of Grey

Chapter 9 The Man who would start wars

Chapter 10 Sigmund Best

Chapter 11 The Café Baccus at Venlo

Chapter 12 Ash Dieback

Chapter 13 Goddard

Chapter 14 Ertgetsog

Chapter 15 Meeting of Illuminate

Chapter 16 The Bolshevik Hoards

Chapter 17 The Second Battle

Prologue

If you are reading this as a stand-alone novel, you might find the following information of interest.

Five people landed on Mars: (book 2)

Colonel Preston Ashton, NASA. (Ash.) Friends with Jake Jensen, they had served in a squadron of F-22 Raptors before leaving the USAF for NASA.

Colonel Jake Jennings, NASA. Ex-Raptor pilot.

Svetlana Danilenko, Russia. Expert scuba diver, took up with the Cosmonaut facility at Baikonur.

Squadron Leader Mark Singelton, RAF. Trained as a builder before joining the RAF. Most of the construction has been done by the Geralds, and other robots, but the human touch is essential, especially on the long journey to Mars and back.

Hoshi Masuto, Japan. Scientist.

Other characters in this story include Michelle Romero, a secretary at NASA, more than a friend to Ash.

Semeramis, (Sem), the Goddess of communications. One of The Illuminate, you will know of Semeramis; said to be the model for the Statue of Liberty, and the face on the emblem of Starbucks. She had control of something called Hilbert Space, a means of communicating more akin to telepathy than speech. (qv; Google it, it really exists).

The Marquis of Libeaux, known now as Marq. The family leader of The Illuminate, and only survivor from that family. Older than Zeus.

Mark Singleton was killed whilst on Mars, but he discovered a secret; a strange set of people on Earth had been behind the Mars mission. (book 3)

These people were The Illuminate.

This story is what happened to these people on Earth after most of The Illuminate; Romanov, Mrs Hapsburg, del Banco, Rockefeller, and Xanthros met a sticky end. (book 5)

But they left behind a secret experiment they had been toying with – a time machine. Unfortunately, only one human could use it – Marq. He was assisted in running this machine by Sem and an unknown number of humanoid robots called Geralds, who had been allowed to develop themselves – that is why they all looked the same.

There were six people who disembarked from the aircraft at Bergerac airport. Three of whom had walked on Mars. Hoshi Masuto had returned to her native Japan,

Marq took delivery of a Renault people carrier.

Ash and Jake rearranged the luggage in the back, whilst Michelle and Galina climbed in to the rear seats with Semeramis opposite them, all three women together.

‘Have you been here before, Sem?’ asked Galina.

‘Yes, on several occasions. It has been under construction and development for fourteen years now.’

Michelle wanted to know,

‘And it’s all been kept secret all the time? Didn’t someone notice a massive industrial development being constructed amongst them?’

‘There was only one man, the local farmer. We simply bought his farm, and left him in it on condition that he does not speak to anyone about what is going on. The French are very good at keeping secrets.’

Jake joined them, and Ash sat with Marq in the front seats for the journey to Martineau.

The scientific setup in central France was well hidden. Even along the half mile drive from the D688 the buildings were not visible until right at the very end. A slight turn; and a dip in the landscape hid it from view, but the biggest part of the whole setup was hidden beneath fields of sunflowers in the surrounding countryside.

Suitcases were deposited in the hallway by the bottom of the stairs. Marq said to the group,

‘I suppose the first thing to do is show you what we have here.’

They followed him into a room to the right of the hallway; away from the main part of the large house. To the left of this room was a short corridor with a bathroom on the left. Opposite the bathroom was a door; an ordinary door with an electronic lock. Upon opening it Marq showed the group into another small corridor. At the end was a door leading outside with a window looking outside towards a small building. On both sides of this passageway were what looked like elevator doors. Marc tapped a keypad on the right wall. Doors silently slid open; he led the group into the elevator.

They seemed to descend for quite a long time; but with no external reference points it was impossible to say how far down they descended.

The doors opened into a whole new world for the NASA employees.

‘The whole setup extends far under the fields above in a circle over half a mile across.’ Marq said, ‘The main control centre is through here.’

He led them into an adjoining room. Here was the usual wall mounted display; this one showed a circle with blocks at various points around it.

Without realising it, Jake said,

‘What’s all this?’

‘Wormhole Control Centre.’ Marq said.

Jake looked completely askance at Marq,

‘Whaaa?’

‘We all have a conception of what a wormhole is, but to be sure we are all on the same page; a wormhole is the name we have given a place where there is a gap in the space/time continuum. This allows passage from one place to another without disturbing the time element normally associated; this means that time can stand still. We have now managed to harness this anomaly, to the result that we can now not only move without moving through time, but we can actually move back in time.’

Jake literally stepped back involuntarily, he looked at Ash,

‘Well, that makes it so much clearer, don’t it. Ash?’

Ash slowly shook his head as they went into another, smaller room. Inside they found a completely alien setup.

Marq led them to a side, where they found what looked like something that could be a human interface.

Ash asked,

‘If there’s room in there I would dearly love to come with you.’

Marq said,

‘It isn’t the room that’s the problem; if you went back twenty years, say, you would emerge as you were twenty years ago – including what you knew twenty years ago. In fact you would be exactly the same person with the same knowledge; there would be no difference. This is the way nature avoids a paradox. I am different.’

Jake pointed out something,

‘If it is not possible for Ash to travel back in time, how was Galina to cope on the way to Sirius?’

‘That is a different time travel.’ Marq replied, ‘Galina would be travelling forwards about 100 years. Coupled with a kind of suspended animation called Statis that is possible.’ He turned to Ash, ‘If you wanted to travel back over 100 years, we can’t use Statis in this case, but I can stand that – you would emerge at age minus 60 years.’

Jake saw the funny side,

‘He’s right, you know; your clothes wouldn’t fit!’

Marq said,

‘Now you understand the systems we have here, what do you suggest we do with it?’

Ash and Jake looked at each other querulously, not knowing what to say.

Eventually Ash pointed out,

‘Am I right in presuming that this is to be some sort of experiment? A prototype as it were?’

‘Yes, Ash. We have been working up to manipulating the time and place designating within the system. Now, here, I think we have reached all of our goals.’

Jake said,

‘How about doing a trial drop at Dunkirk?’

‘What date? Any particular sector?’ Marq replied.

‘26th May, 1940.’ Jake said quickly, ‘I heard that one of my ancestors died there on that day.’

Semeramis said,

‘Interesting. Any more on that?’

‘There was a place named.’ He thought for a moment, ‘Grand Sinth, or something like that.’

‘Very well, Semeramis. Could you set up the equipment, the Geralds will help you, plus return contingencies? I must now get ready for my own leap into the past.’

Sem took some time to be as precise as possible. Marq changed into the World War Two uniform of a French soldier, and then took his seat as the others left the room.

… … … … … … … … … …

Chapter One

The Forgotten Soldiers

In a village hall just outside Grande-Synth, only 6 kilometres from Dunkirk, an adjutant of the French Army greeted his new commander.

‘This is a terrible situation.’ The Adjutant began, ‘Are the Germans going to stop to negotiate peace?’

The Lieutenant-Colonel did not respond as he sat down at his desk.

Presently he lifted his head and said,

‘No. They will not be suing for peace; they fully intend to punish us for Versailles.’

He moved papers around on the desk,

‘And it will be these poor men who will bear the brunt of it.’

He looked up again,

‘Have you vetted all these men yourself?’

‘Yes, Sir. But the orders that came down were a little – well, should we say obscure.’

‘They had to be; would you like it to be your name that ordered these men to commit suicide?’

‘But we are charged with passing the orders on.’

‘Yes, and I would advise you to keep your name off any documents relating to this operation.’

The Adjutant shrugged,

‘All these names - ’ He held another list, ‘they will surely know we passed the orders on. You cannot keep secrets as easily as that.’

‘We will not be keeping the secret. These men are all volunteers, no?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘And when we asked for volunteers, what was the criteria?’

The Adjutant thought a little,

‘It was stipulated that they should be single, and have no living relatives.’

‘And why do you think that was so?’

‘Is it because this is a dangerous mission?’

‘Not exactly, Henri.’ The officer put the papers down, ‘This is a suicide mission.’ He stood up, and moved closer to the Adjutant as his voice became lower, ‘It looks like we shall be facing SS troops. They take no prisoners, when this sorry mess is over, questions may well be asked. We do not want civilians walking around asking ‘What happened to my uncle?’ and ‘Who sent him on this death mission with no hope of surviving it?’ even if the Germans are