"Nothing is more precious than Independence and Liberty."
Ho Chi Minh.
...
...
"It's over, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is."
Two men talked to each inside an elegant and fashionable office. The mood in the office was gravely somber, and the sweltering heat and the outside noises of the hustle and bustle of the city of Hanoi did nothing to improve the unhappiness which they both felt.
"General Castries has surrendered. The fortress of Dien Bien Phu has fallen. Our reign in Indochina is all but finished."
As one of the men spoke while standing at attention, the other man sighed as he looked around at his desk. Maurice DeJean, the French High Commissioner of Indochina, had failed. When he had assumed the office ten months ago, he had declared that he would responsible for the security and defense of the region in the name of the Fourth French Republic. But now on May 8, 1954, there was little to do but prepare for the inevitable exit from the region. Whether the Vietminh, the organization of Communists and revolutionaries, would have full control of the country was something he did not know. It seemed likely to him. They had succeeded in rallying the people behind him in a way that the French-backed Emperor, Bao Dai, had never managed to accomplish despite over a hundred years of Imperial rule backed by his great nation. There were rumblings of a possible American intervention within the region, but that was not for him to decide. Statesmen both from the West and the Communist bloc were negotiating in Geneva about the fate of Indochina, and it was for diplomats to decide, not an administrator like DeJean was.
"What shall happen to us? I assume we shall be returning to France shortly."
DeJean looked at the man who was across from him. He was a captain in the French Indochina Army, one of the few officers who were stationed in the city to prevent Vietminh infiltration. He had done as well as job as could be expected, but it was clear that as the people anticipated victory by the Vietnamese nationalists, not a night went by without some act of sabotage of attack that hindered the war efforts of the Republic. Last night, two policemen had been shot walking their nightly beats.
"I do not know where I shall be heading next. There are signs of growing unrest in Algeria as well. That we must absolutely hold. Algeria is next to France, it is not a colony like this region was. I am sure there that the natives there will understand the importance of remaining good citizens of the Republic.
But in the meantime, I have an important job for you. Would you follow me, captain?"
The captain followed DeJean to another circular room, and looked around. Around the walls of this windowless room was an impressive library. It seemed that instead of walls, there were shelves, covered with innumerable books that even included some foreign texts. DeJean walked to the center of the room, while the captain remained in the entrance.
"Quite impressive, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
The Commissioner smiled as he wistfully looked at the books.
"It really was a pity that these Orientals rose up the minute we returned after the Japanese defeat. If they looked at this library, they would have known that we only wished to build peace and prosperity, and had nothing but their best intentions at heart. Come, look for yourself, captain."
The row of books was impressive, the captain observed. France had been at war to keep the region of Indochina for nearly a decade now, and yet in the library of the High Commissioner, there were few books on war and their tactics. They were mostly scientific or technical books, interspersed with various works of fine literature. Here was one book that discussed the history of railroads. He pulled another which talked of textile production, another on manufacturing, as well as Keynes's seminal work on economics and the ideas of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Aside from a few books discussing tanks and aircraft, the former of which was completely impractical in the jungles of Indochina to begin with, it was not a library which one would expect from one fighting a desperate war to preserve territory.
"I'm surprised you would keep something like this, sir. Are there reports on conducting guerilla and commando operations?"
"There are files about that in my desk. Regardless, I would not like these works to fall into the hands of the Communists. Who knows what those ignorant savages will do with these works of learning? They will probably burn all of these as capitalist literature. Captain, you have experience with flying aircraft, yes?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Good. We will be loading these books onto a military transport aircraft shortly. You will fly to Tokyo, and from there you will cross the Pacific to the United States. Once you are there, we'll figure a way to get these books back to Paris. I'd also like you to take the files I just mentioned as well and take them with you."
24 hours later, the captain walked towards a Nord Noratlus transport plane. The moving of the books had gone quickly and efficiently. Even under a dying regime, coolies were never one to question just what they were loading or unloading. It was likely because of that Vietnam was such a primitive place, he thought. Why build machines when you can have cheap laborers do all your work anyways?
As he climbed into the cockpit, he noticed that the Commissioner was waiting at the gates, holding an erect pose and saluting. The Captain responded in turn, and then started the plane's engine. He hoped that the shelves which had been bolted to the back of the plane would remain upright, and that the tarp coverings keeping the books in their cases would hold. Otherwise, organization would be a serious concern upon arrival.
...
The flight to Tokyo proceeded without a hitch, and after a few hours where both the plane was refueled and the pilot rested in preparation for the long voyage, he once again set off. Two hours later, he kicked his seat back and relaxed. While falling asleep would obviously be a problem as he was alone on this plane, it is when a plane is cruising that it is at its safest anyways. There probably wasn't much to be concerned about for a while.
However, he noticed some storm clouds approaching, and while at first he sighed at having the plane endure a thunderstorm, a second glance at the clouds made him stare. Storm clouds were naturally dark, but they weren't completely pitch black. He could tell that there was something different about these clouds.
As the plane hit the clouds, he noticed another surprise about these strange clouds. When a plane hit a storm cloud, it turned dark and difficult to see. But he couldn't see anything at all. It was almost as if it had been completely swallowed by the cloud, and the captain pulled out the radio in order to deliver a possible mayday.
It was dead. He threw it down in frustration and then realized that the compass was going haywire. It was spinning as fast it could, pointing to absolutely nothing. What was going on? All he could do was press the plane onward, hoping he could get out of this strange black cloud as soon as possible.
All of a sudden, the cloud disappeared. Once again, its behavior had been peculiar. It had truly vanished into nothing, unlike normal when a cloud continues to get thinner and thinner and then gradually disappears. He would appear talk about that with a scientist friend when he got back to Paris, the captain thought as he glanced out the cockpit window and down at the ocean.
And then he jumped out of his seat and checked to make sure that he was seeing what he was seeing. He wasn't over the ocean anymore. Instead, it was a giant green plain. And while the compass had stopped spinning, it indicated that he was going north, as opposed to the eastward direction that he was supposed to be heading.
He didn't know what was going on and he stared at the plain for several minutes, as if he expected what he was seeing to be a giant hallucination and for the Pacific to reappear. But it didn't change, and out of confusion he began to lower the height of the transport plane.
It was at that point that he noticed a small village, but even from the extreme height he was in, he noticed that it was odd. There were no traces of lights or tall buildings, just some shorter building like a small house and a lack of highways. It appeared to be some farming village – perhaps a commune?
Either way, there was no doubt that he was completely lost. Although he tried again, the radio was still not working, and he seemingly had no way whatsoever to try communicating with the outside world. He would lower and descend upon the village. It was doubtful that they would speak the same language as he did, but he would find a way to figure what had happened here and then continue on his mission.
As he prepared to land in a field, he noticed that the villagers, wearing what appeared to be incredibly primitive clothing, stared and pointed at him. Even so, he continued to begin the landing process, and so the plane landed in this peculiar village. The captain unbuckled his seatbelt, and as he left the cockpit and walked towards the entrance, he silently apologized to the Commissioner. He would find a way to complete his mission as soon as he figured out where he was.
He would apologize once more on his deathbed, as despite the establishment of a family in this village and a happy life, he realized that he would be unable to complete his job of delivering the books. His dying wish was to pray that someone would come from his world and to this land of Helgekinia, and complete that which he failed to do.
If there was an afterlife for those who died in Helgekinia, it would be a wish he would live to regret.