Beowulf "Bey" Shaeffer is on a flight between Down and Gummidgy when the ship's captain, Margo Tellefsen, announces that she is dropping out of hyperdrive so passengers can witness a starseed setting sail.
Just after this happens, all passengers are knocked out by a gas introduced in the ship's life system; while no cargo is missing, a Kdatlyno touch sculptor named Lloobee has vanished.
Because Kdatlyno cannot spend extended time in small space ships (Margo mentioned seeing a large yacht before passing out), Shaeffer reasons that Lloobee's kidnappers must have taken him onto the planet.
The resulting crash breaks the bones in his hands and damages his car enough to force it down, while Bellamy lands his still-functional yacht in order to finish off Shaeffer.
Bellamy rushes back aboard to try to deal with this, but the gyros overload and seize up while he is still on the boarding ladder, causing the yacht to spin end-for-end and bounce off into the distance.
She reveals in her turn that she is much older than she appears, and was Bellamy's mother; but she does not resent Shaeffer's part in his death, since she understood that he would certainly have run one deadly risk after another until he was inevitably killed.