# Rufus Sollenar — Short Fiction character guide

> Rufus Sollenar in Short Fiction by Algis Budrys.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Sollenar, III Rufus Sollenar

**First appearance:** 0000-riya-s-foundling

## Snapshot

A hunted man who breaks away at a space field and dies offering a Martian toy to the agent sent to kill him — and something passes between them.

## Who they are

Sollenar is the quarry of S.P.R.O. agent Ermine, a man whose flight from the space field has already roiled a job of work and who now walks out of a Martian building holding an entertainment machine as if it were a token. He is shot cleanly, unhurriedly, and his golden ball rolls into the sand — yet the killing leaves Ermine suddenly able to feel wind and ground, transformed by whatever Sollenar carried. Sollenar's death is the transaction that gives the story its strange, reverent turn.

## In the story

### [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_2_se/chapters/i)

The powerful head of the Sollenar Corporation, standing in his high office, contemplating his victory with EmpaVid and receiving a warning from Mr. Ermine.

### [II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_2_se/chapters/ii)

The assassin who attempts to kill Cortwright Burr for a golden artifact, struggles with his failure to finish the job, and later returns to Bess Allardyce.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_2_se/characters/rufus_sollenar
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_2_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_2_se/characters