Explore "The Manless Worlds" by Murray Leinster on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Actually there was less than a quart of fuel in the _Starshine's_ / tanks. Kim knew it ruefully well. It would run the little ship at / interplanetary speed for perhaps six hours. On normal overdrive -- two / hundred light-speeds -- it would send her just about one-seventh of a / light-year, and star-systems averaged eight light-years apart in both / the First and Second Galaxies.
Of course, on transmitter-drive -- the practically infinite speed / the _Starshine_ alone in history had attained -- the ship might / circumnavigate the cosmos on a quart of fuel. But merely rising from / Terranova would consume one-third of it, and landing on any other / planet would take another third.