Black Foxe Military Institute - Adjutant Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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SENIOR CLASS The note arrived three weeks before my one hundred and fifth birthday, and I still re- member the clap of thunder that rumbled across the sky as I opened it. It had no post- mark, only my name and address, and all it said was: Be at the castle of His Maiesty Aladdiin the night of August 30, 2042. Don't faiI. There was no signature. I was old and of course not accustomed to traveling the continents, though I had trav- eled my share in my youth. Nevertheless I was drawn by some almost irresistable force to the land of Arabia, where, many years before, the castle of Aladdin had been uncovered, still standing and very little damaged. On the appointed day, which was also my birthday, I stood before the ancient castle walls. No reconstruction or occupation of the castle had occured since its recovery, due to wars and more modernistic exploration, and entrance was easily gained. The time was late at night when I arrived and as I approached the castle itself light- ning lit the huge doorway through which I was to pass and revealed to me in huge letters the inscription: PALACE OF HIS MAJESTY ALADDIN. The doorway was rotted and split and I entered at the very instant the clouds opened and the wind and rain began to lash the cold stone walls. The light of my flashlight was assisted by intermittant atmospheric flashes as I crossed a huge entrance hall and went down a narrow corridor, somehow knowing where to go but not knowing why I was going there. In the corridor the lightning no longer reached me, but I still walked on, drawn by some force I could not name. I passed through cor- ridors and passages in an endless maze, some cluttered with old armor, some even littered with human bones, and all covered with heavy layers of dust that rose as I passed, block- ing the passage behind me. Suddenly I came upon a room of considerable length and height, but no more than fifteen yards wide. It was clear of dust and was adorned by a long table and twenty five chairs, in the fashion of a banquet and in good condition. Being tired I sat down to rest at one end of the table and surveyed the room. There were several passageways leading out of it similar to the one I had come through, and far above was a skylight through which the flashes of lightning could aagin be seen. I turned out my flashlight to rest the batteries. No sound could be heard. Then before me appeared ci tall, thin, apparition, rising from the chair at the other end of the table. It was of a luminous white and took the shape of a man. It spoke in an intangible voice which seemed not to be there but which, I felt, could have been heard in the strongest wind, and which echoed down the passageways and up to the high ceil- mg. Speak not, Thorne Gray, and listen to what I must say, it said to me. I am the Genii of Aladdin's Lamp up from the deep and cold damp to tell you of death to a man like you who has been good all his life but who must go too. When a good soul leaves its earthly home and passes on it does not roam, but instead is ioined with the souls of the friends with whom the happiest years of his life he did spend. Lightning illuminated the room for an instant, and there was no vision at the other end of the table. But in the dark again it reappeared, this time seated, and this time ioined by twenty three other figures of similar appearance who filled the remaining chairs. Spoke the Genii, These are those classmates of Black-Foxe School where you trained as a leader instead of a fool. Those were the happiest years of your life, filled with fun and lacking strife. And I saw that each face was one I knew, young again the way they had been then, although all had lived to a ripe old age.

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PROPHECY On my left was Norbert Orens, vice president of our class and in later life the Di- rector of lnterplanetary Sports, and across from him was one of Saturn's foremost phy- sicians, Mike Wong, who had been Secretary of our class and who, as I recall, had been quite a swimmer. Next to Orens was James Ming, our Trustworthy Treasurer and a famous pianist of his day, and completing the class officers, Ifor I myself was presidentl was Ed Paschall, class Sergeant at Arms and teacher of music at the University of Jupiter. Down the left of the table, after Jim Ming, was Dave Bachman, who, as I had read in the Earth Daily Times, was a famous interpreter of the interplanetary symphonic noises from which come the Galaxy's greatest musical works. Dick Brown next, owner of the famous collection of Plutonion Coins, the most valuable in the known Universe. Gordon Clendenning was next, interplanetary linquist and solar comedian, and Casey Cooper, im- porter of Mercury Orchids. How well I remembered them, through my own correspondence and through news- papers. George Coriat and Philip Dee who worked together as top flight international en- gineers on the first international rocket proiect, back when the United States was still a separate part of Earth. And Emmett Buster Guise who developed the aeronautical details of that very same proiect. Way down at the other end of the table was Jerry Herbst, developer and distributor of rocket and saucer fuel. On the right side of the table at the other end was Lee Hutson, the first Governor of Earth's moon, and next to him Alan Kane who wrote for the lnterplanetary Press and cov- vered such events as the destruction of Saturn's rings. There was Bob Knourek, conductor of the Galaxy Symphonic Orchestra and, incidentally, a wonderful conductor of the music of Dave Bashman. Another flash of lightning lit the four walls of the room and revealed in its glare twenty-four empty chairs, but in the returning darkness the ghostly figures reappeared, showing Nelson Loke seated on the left of Bob Knourek, Nelson, I recalled, was the Gal- axy's foremost authority on Rhythm and Blues, a form of entertainment in the 20th Cen- tury when we were in school. No one did more for the cause of religion than the next person, Richard Meyer, disciple of Our Lord and Missionary to the dark planets. Next to Rich was Don Owen who had been a photographer of outer space and was renowned for discovering three Galaxies formerly unthought of . Jim Pollock, the great Shakespearian actor was next and after him Ronald Remington, the politician who broke up an infamous gangster syndicate way back in 1965. Harry Rothschild, one of the school's best first lieutenants and owner of the Rothschild Oil Com- pany which dealt in lubricants for intergalaxial spaceships, was the next vision and George Vail, pilot of some of the first rocket ships, sat next to him. The last place was occupied by Dudley Warner who achieved intergalaxial fame by developing the ray gun which con- quered both the Martians and the Pathagoliths. Those were the faces I knew and spent my school days with at Black-Foxe, and those were the memories each brought back to me as I surveyed them quickly before the Genii spoke again. Now stand and leave your body, for you have passed away, and, though you feel no different, your soul may not here stay. Join now forever those friends you knew and have happy times in Eternity too. And the Genii vanished before me, causing me to stand sud- denly in alarm, and just as suddenly those twenty-three ghosts of my classmates arose and with a windy, hollow cheer, welcomed me to the class again. I looked at myself, and I had the same intangible body that they had, and in my chair was a stony visage that had been me. With a sudden crash the castle, shaken by the wind and rain, collapsed upon the table and upon my freinds and me, but we merely ascended through the wreckage and kept on rising. .,:. ttf ht , .4' .Lu I, gi! it n Y. .x,.