# Doc — The Big Time character guide

> Doc in The Big Time by Fritz Leiber.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** the Doc

**First appearance:** 0000-i-enter-three-hussars

## Snapshot

The outfit's medic, found grandly at the bar with tea chasing a shot, steadying nerves and tempers while the war leaks through the walls.

## Who they are

Doc is the outfit's calm center, the one who drinks his tea with a chaser while the Void glitters outside and everyone else trades gossip about mine fields and shortages. He carries the quiet authority of a man who patches up casualties from wars that haven't happened yet. When the party turns tense, his rational conversation with Sevensee and Maud shows why the Place needs him: someone has to keep the recuperation from becoming another casualty.

## Relationships

### [Unknown Narrator](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_big_time_se/characters/unknown_narrator)

_professional_

Doc is a skilled colleague and healer who works alongside the narrator, offering medical expertise and pragmatic advice.

### [Unknown Narrator](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_big_time_se/characters/unknown_narrator)

_professional_

Doc is a skilled colleague and healer who works alongside the narrator, offering medical expertise and pragmatic advice.

### [Unknown Narrator](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_big_time_se/characters/unknown_narrator)

_professional_

Doc is a skilled colleague and healer who works alongside the narrator, offering medical expertise and pragmatic advice.

## In the story

### [II: A Right-Hand Glove](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_big_time_se/chapters/ii-a-right-hand-glove)

Has a flashback to his time in a Nazi salt mine, chanting in German about salt and a whip, before snapping out of it with a shrug.

### [III: Nine for a Party](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_big_time_se/chapters/iii-nine-for-a-party)

Doc is drunk but knowledgeable, commenting on a Venusian bowl in the Art Gallery. He is the oldest inhabitant of the Place.

### [X: Motives and Opportunities](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_big_time_se/chapters/x-motives-and-opportunities)

Doc fiddles around the Gallery; the narrator notes his strong motive to avoid punishment for dereliction of duty.

### [XIV: “Now Will You Talk?”](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_big_time_se/chapters/xiv-now-will-you-talk)

Referenced as having tried to communicate the idea of inverting the box to disarm the bomb.

### [XV: Lord Spider](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_big_time_se/chapters/xv-lord-spider)

Howls like a wolf, revealing he was responsible for the Spider wail sound used in Sid's act.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_big_time_se/characters/doc
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_big_time_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_big_time_se/characters