After a while—nearly an hour had elapsed—he was wandering through silent corridors. It was hot inside his suit.
He found the pick-up ships eventually, but they were ripped from their moorings. One seemed upright and serviceable. He tested the motor. The motor worked. He got out and struggled with the escape hatch. Finally it came loose.
He taxied the pick-up ship out of the mother ship.
Hyperspace was grey and hideous. Here and there lights flashed. The vast, battered derelict of the Advanceship lay below him. Hyperspace sped away. He blasted further from the gutted hull and brought up the space shield of his craft. It wavered around him. Behind him the tortured Advanceship exploded.
He hit back toward real space. The craft skittered under his hands as he wrenched at the controls. The motor was strong, but its delicate shielding apparatus had been damaged and there was a sickening jolt. The shield was off and Parr was falling, down, down, down, and lights in his head exploded.
And he thought it was infinitely sad that he had done something decent for the first time and now he was to be punished for all the rest. Then he knew no more....