It took him a long time, and the task drew his mind away from the horror about him. With the patience of long experience, Standish made his repairs. At length it was completed, and he paused with bated breath while he pressed the starting button.
The motor began, sluggishly at first, then faster and faster. Presently it was droning evenly as if nothing had almost wrecked it earlier.
"One motor isn't much," he told himself. "But it may be enough."
For the third time he returned to the control room. There, triumph met his gaze. The master indicator showed a definite forward movement through space. The crippled ship was moving, though slowly.
Standish turned his attention next to the visiscreens and emergency radio with which the liner had kept in contact with Earth and Sirius. Neither the transmitting nor the receiving sets showed any response when he turned on the control switch. A glance back of the panels showed shattered tubes and broken apparatus.
He went out on the deck and climbed to the pilot cuddy. One look through the three-directional glassite shield told a grim story. But it was a full minute before the significance of it all probed into him.
The view ahead was utterly unfamiliar. Strange stars and constellations glowed in the void. Far off to his left was the white radiance of a spiral nebula. To the right, the galaxies seemed to blend in a bewildering array of light and matter, stretching on into infinitude.
Standish's knowledge of cosmography was limited. He knew that straight lines connecting Sirius with Procyon and Betelguese would constitute a nearly equilateral triangle. He knew, too, that Betelguese, Sirius and Regel—all of the first magnitude—formed a lozenge-shaped figure, with Orion's belt in the center.
But try as he would, he could locate none of these stellar landmarks.