Authentic Science Fiction, December 1951 — page 32: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

30 THE MOON IS HEAVEN glances at Reina. After a while, Leeson announces that the ship will definitely take care of itself for a bit and joins in the play. Leeson suggests a gamble, that you play for pieces of the Moon. All are in high spirits, so all agree. Within an hour or so you find that you are the owner of the Leibnitz moun- tains, the crater Albategnius and the Mare Crisium. Since the English name for the latter is ‘‘ Sea of Crises,’’ you’re not so sure you want it, but there it is. You carry on playing until everyone possesses a few thousand lunar square miles and then by common consent it becomes time to sleep. And it’s the weirdest sleep you’ve ever had.. You don’t exactly dream of falling out of trees, but you certainly wake up sweating once or twice. And finding yourself unsupported doesn’t help any. Fitful, you reckon they’d call it. Across the way when you wake up each time, you can see Reina curled up against the wall. You get an inane desire to go across and do something silly—push her up to the ceiling or something. Pour water over her and see it not run off. Things like that. The thought strikes you that almost everyone has been acting a bit light-headed lately. Maybe that’s what free-fall does to you after a bit. You chuckle and go back ‘to sleep. A snatch of a dream comes where you're dressed up in purple robes, lording it over a sea of Schnabels, until a crisis occurs and you have to run up the Leibnitz mountains. After a while you wake up feeling hungry. You propel yourself across to Reina, noticing on the way that Atah is still awake and doing things with the instruments. You dig Reina in the ribs and watch her float away as though she were just a balloon filled with gas. She rotates as she rises and looks so peculiar as she rubs her eyes that you can’t help laughing. That wakes her up pretty quick and she glares at you. But when you mention hunger it seems to remind her of something and she forgets about your laughter. Within a few minutes she’s got the comicbooks.com