Pete manipulated the button. Then he held his breath, glanced at Murph, and slipped into the pilot's cradle. It was too wide and deep but he imagined that he filled it. He imagined the switchboard alive and winking and his body weighing a thousand tons, then weighing nothing at all. The Hester had passed escape velocity, cast off gravity, and earth lay already ten thousand miles behind her. The board showed she had slewed a little because of the slight warp in the hull. He corrected course. Then he cut power, and the ship went driving on with nothing to stop it at thirty thousand miles an hour.
Murph let him sit there a full minute. Then he lifted him down.
"Let's go outside, see if there's any business."
There wasn't, and they lounged on a piece of canvas in the blackened blast area.
The band-radio around Pete's shoulder pulsed gently. He dialed it up.
"I know where you are, Peter. I want you back here right this instant. Your mother and I both...."
He dialed off.
"Anything else I can do for you, Murph?"
"Well—you might go to Rannel's store, after awhile, and get me a couple packs of self-lights. I'm about out of smokes."
"Be glad to."