# Short Fiction — Character guide

> Key figures in Short Fiction by Philip K. Dick.

- [Major Hendricks](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/major_hendricks.md): Hendricks commands men in a theater of war where the enemy may not be what the briefing promised, and every patrol could be walking into a trap or a revelation. His authority depends on reading situations correctly, yet 
- [Tommy Cole](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/tommy_cole.md): Cole survives by trading odd jobs — repairs, carpentry, sharpening — for meals and pocket money, drifting through a world where two silent dots crossing the sky make him uneasy. He has no stake in the future's wars or it
- [Security Commissioner Reinhart](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/security_commissioner_reinhart.md): Reinhart runs operations with a wristwatch in one hand and a company of armed police at his back, cutting off Sherikov's protests with a curt signal to put the man under arrest. He believes timing is everything and trust
- [Conger](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/conger.md): Conger has hunted the mountains of the moon and stalked empty Martian cities, a man who lived as he pleased until the Speaker offered him a chance to restore his standing. Now he stares at bones in a cupboard and tries t
- [Doctor Henry Harris](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/doctor_henry_harris.md): Harris works from a desk stacked with Base Commander Cox's scrawled notes, treating a handsome young Patrolman's delusion as a problem to be understood rather than dismissed. He offers cigarettes, polishes his glasses, a
- [Phil Kramer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/phil_kramer.md): Kramer arrives with Commander Gross and a security detail, but pushes them aside to speak privately with the frail Professor Thomas, admitting he and Dolores are separated because their careers got in the way. The old ma
- [Peter Sherikov](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/peter_sherikov.md): Sherikov runs the vast research network under the Ural Mountains, where Terra's last hope against Centaurus is being assembled piece by piece. He bristles at Reinhart's political supervision, meeting the Council man's de
- [Tasso](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/tasso.md): Tasso moves with Dorle, Nasha, and Tance across a blasted landscape toward the ruined city from which the firing came, teasing Dorle about rank while pushing the group forward. She is the one who reads the charred founda
- [Ed Loyce](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/ed_loyce.md): Loyce runs a television sales and service shop in a town where everyone knows him, which makes the afternoon's horror worse: a stranger's body dangles from a lamppost and the whole street walks past it as if it were civi
- [Tony Rossi](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/tony_rossi.md): Tony shares a truck with an elderly Pas-udeti through the red dust outside Karnet, and rather than sit silent he asks about the war, the fleet, and the relatives the old creature lost when the system fell. His father's c
- [Klaus Epstein](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/klaus_epstein.md): Epstein is part of the working complement that loads go-birds and animals up the gangplank while Franco haggles with the Optus below. He belongs to the ship's small society of men — Peterson, Jones, French — whose routin
- [Commander Gross](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/commander_gross.md): Gross belongs to the security apparatus that surrounds Terra's military research, the force that makes Sherikov's independence a negotiated privilege rather than a right. His world is the one Reinhart moves through — rep
- [Lawrence Watts](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/lawrence_watts.md): Larry comes home to find his wife Doris and a young man named Bob Chambers standing before the antique clock she adores, and his response is immediate, proprietary, and cold. He keeps the clock after Doris leaves, not ou
- [Erick](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/erick.md): A character involved in a tense situation.
- [Mr. Spaceship Kramer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/mr_spaceship_kramer.md): Kramer knew Professor Thomas when he was young, and the old man's first words to him are about weight gained and a marriage that didn't work out — a personal reckoning delivered before business. He waves off Commander Gr
- [Doris](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/doris.md): A woman with a personal connection to a main character.
- [Dorle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/dorle.md): A female character in a futuristic setting.
- [Nasha](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/nasha.md): A female character with a mysterious role.
- [Mara Gordon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/mara_gordon.md): A woman involved in a psychological experiment.
- [Joseph Dixon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/joseph_dixon.md): A security agent investigating a case.
- [Steven](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/steven.md): A young man in a post-apocalyptic setting.
- [Margaret Duffe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/margaret_duffe.md): A woman in a small town.
- [Lora Hunt](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/lora_hunt.md): A woman in a relationship with a main character.
- [Jan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/jan.md): A character in a story about aliens.
- [Lt. Scott](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/lt_scott.md): A military lieutenant.
- [David Edward Derring](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/david_edward_derring.md): A cloned or artificial human.
- [Bob Chambers](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/bob_chambers.md): A man in a small town.
- [Bob Thacher](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/bob_thacher.md): A man involved in a conflict.
- [The Pipers](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/the_pipers.md): A group of alien beings.
- [Kaplan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters/kaplan.md): A security agent.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_43_se/characters