her

gone on as casually to describe the grotesque indecency of the kind of death the Nachief was planning for them—
She stared at the back of his massive blond head, weak with her terror and hatred, until the bubble lurched violently again, flinging her back. This time, when she scrambled up on hands and knees, they were dropping with a headlong, rushing finality that told her the bubble had been hit and was going to crash. But they were still a mile above ground.
She offered no resistance when the Nachief picked her up and hauled her out of the lock with him.

Ribbon-chutes were unfolding in a coordinated pattern of minor jolts above them. Though it was only the Nachief’s arm that held her clamped hard against his side, Lane felt quite insanely calm. They had dropped below the point where the station’s gunners could target on them. He was going to get her down alive. He had no intention of giving up his prey merely because his own life was in danger. Something struck against her legs—the barrel of the big hunting gun he held in his other hand. A sudden cunning thought came to her, and she went completely limp, waiting.
The ground was less than a hundred feet below, turning, tilting, expanding and rushing up at them, before she flung herself into a spasm of furious activity. She heard the Nachief’s angry shout, felt them sway and jerk as his arm tightened with punishing, rib-cracking intensity about her. Then they struck.
Lane stood up presently, looked about dazedly and went limping over to the Nachief. He lay face down two hundred feet away. The chutes were entangled in a cluster of stubby trees, but they had dragged him that far first. He was breathing. He wasn’t dead; but he was unconscious. She stared down