John W. Campbell 
Islands of Space [EPUB ebook] 

As Earth’s faster-than-light spaceship hung in the void between galaxies, Arcot, Wade, Morey and Fuller could see below them, like a vast shining horizon, the mass of stars that formed their own island universe. Morey worked a moment with his slide rule, then said, ‘We made good time! Twenty-nine light years in ten seconds! Yet you had it on at only half power….’