LIFEBOAT

Orbit paperback, 1977. Cover artist uncredited. Possibly
Paul Lehr?

"A saboteur's bomb ripped through the hull of the seemingly indestructible galactic liner, leaving bare minutes for the survivors of the alien crew and human cargo to evacuate ship. 

Giles Steel Ahsad, Adelman, found himself adrift in a tiny lifeboat with a group of human slaves and two Albanareth crewmen. Only the aliens knew how to pilot the vessel - and they had lost the will to live... 

Gordon Dickson, author of the DORSAI trilogy, and Harry Harrison, creator of the DEATHWORLD stories, combine their talents in a magnificent novel of disaster and survival in the vastness between the stars."