question:  How would you describe the pace of the characters, and why?
context: [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1944. It made a spiked fist and knocked the rear-jets flat, and the ship spun like a cosmic merry-go-round. Hathaway only knew he was picked up and hurled against a lever-bank, and that Marnagan wasn't long in following, swearing loud words. A sweeter one still of Marnagan beating hell out of the controls and keeping his words to himself until just now. They both waited, thrust against the shipside and held by a hand of gravity; listening to each other's breathing hard in the earphones. Hathaway felt himself grabbed; he and Marnagan rattled around—human dice in a croupier's cup. The best scenes in life never reach film, or an audience. They stood in the middle of a pocked, time-eroded meteor plain that stretched off, dipping down into silent indigo and a rash of stars. Overhead, the sun poised; black and stars all around it, making it look sick. Hathaway felt his heart pumping slow, hot pumps of blood. "It's not proof we need now, Click. Oh, God, this would make great news-release stuff if we ever get back to Earth. There wasn't much to see, but it was better than standing still, waiting. We got fifty minutes to prove you're right. After that—right or wrong—you'll be Cosmic Films prettiest unmoving, unbreathin' genius. It's times like this when we all need words, any words, on our tongues. "Gravity should not act this way, Click." Immense crimson beasts with numerous legs and gnashing mandibles, brown-black creatures, some tubular and fat, others like thin white poisonous whips slashing along in the air. The immense things rolled, slithered and squirmed after him. Hathaway made it first, Marnagan bellowing just behind him. You're doing nothing but sitting, looking like a little boy locked in a bedroom closet, so take me a profile shot of the beasties and myself."
output:  Quickly. The characters were under a time constraint, depleting air, and were encountering additional threats that made them move with haste.
options:  Quickly. The characters were under a time constraint, depleting air, and were encountering additional threats that made them move with haste.  At a sprint. The characters were so scared that they were rushing decisions and they weren't thinking logically.  Average. Though the characters were concerned for their survival, they were taking things at a normal pace because they thought they could be rescued.  Slowly. The characters didn't want to endanger themselves further in the situation so they tried to think everything through fully.