# Short Fiction — Character guide

> Key figures in Short Fiction by Cordwainer Smith.

- [Martel III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_11_se/characters/martel_iii.md): Martel is a Scanner of the Instrumentality, a man cut apart for the Up-and-Out and fitted with a chestbox that lets him rule his own terror — until he doesn't. He comes to Adam Stone under a false name, invoking his wife
- [Underhill](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_11_se/characters/underhill.md): Underhill is one of the four Partners aboard the Fighting Room, a low, brutish type whose telepathy never refined his character — only made him serviceable. His tenderness with the Lady May, sealed into her projectile wi
- [Adam Stone](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_11_se/characters/adam_stone.md): Adam Stone looks like a jolly guide from the Pleasure Gallery, not a man who stood at the edge of the Up-and-Out without haberman protection. He keeps himself lawfully armed, greets a self-declared Scanner with calm and 
- [Luci](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_11_se/characters/luci.md): Luci is the domestic warmth Martel limps home to, feeding him old-book smells and music wires while he tries to relearn being a body. Her gaiety is a little forced, and she knows more than she says about what he has beco
- [Vomact](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_11_se/characters/vomact.md): Vomact belongs to the layered world of Scanner captains, kith, and titled houses that frame the Fighting Room's mission. The name carries the weight of lineage and authority — the kind of standing that decides who comman
- [Father Moontree](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_11_se/characters/father_moontree.md): Father Moontree is the ritual and command presence aboard the Fighting Room, phoning the captain to clear for planoform and intoning the order to move. His telepathic crew catches his meaning long before his heavy human 
- [Parizianski](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_11_se/characters/parizianski.md): Parizianski belongs to the silent brotherhood of Scanners, men whose brains are cut from sense and speech and who must talk with their fingers or shout like a broken phone. He is warmth trapped in a face he cannot govern
- [Lady May](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_11_se/characters/lady_may.md): Lady May is Underhill's Partner in the Fighting Room, a cat whose mind brushes his with images of a golden-faced son and soft downy fur even as she scans space for enemies. She perceives faster than he can, and when the 
- [Chang](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_11_se/characters/chang.md): Chang is the one Scanner in or between the Earths who can pass for a Man, a trick of practiced voice and controlled face that his father insisted on. He cannot feel or taste or hear any more than the others, yet he talks
- [Woodley](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_11_se/characters/woodley.md): A Scanner with a gloomy disposition.
- [Captain Wow](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_11_se/characters/captain_wow.md): A minor character with a distinctive name.
- [Henry Haberman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_11_se/characters/henry_haberman.md): A character referenced in the Scanner world.
- [Miss West](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_11_se/characters/miss_west.md): A female character with limited presence.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_11_se/characters