A Changer - a member of a near-extinct humanoid species capable of altering their physical appearance to perfectly mimic others. Working as an agent for the Idirans in their war against the Culture, Horza is driven by a deep philosophical opposition to machine-led civilisation, believing the Culture's AI Minds represent a fundamental threat to biological life.

The oldest member of Kraiklyn's Free Company, Aviger is a cautious, somewhat anxious mercenary who often voices the crew's collective nervousness as the company moves from one ill-conceived raid to the next.

A small, plump member of Kraiklyn's Free Company and a devout follower of the Circle of Flame religion. Kind-hearted, prone to murmured prayer in moments of stress, and quietly out of place among the harder cases the Company tends to attract, Dorolow brings a softness and a faith to the crew that none of the others quite know what to do with - least of all Horza, whose own opinions about gods she takes pains, gently and without rancour, to disagree with whenever the subject arises.

Lamm is a member of Kraiklyn's Free Company, marked out by the small horn grafts on his head and the equally conspicuous chip on his shoulder that seems to come with them. Belligerent, hot-tempered, and dangerous in the way men who have decided their reputation depends on it tend to be, he cusses and threatens his crewmates at the slightest provocation - and at quite a lot of no provocation at all - and conducts himself, on a ship where competence and tolerance for one another are both in short supply, like a man who has long ago given up expecting either from anyone else.

A member of Kraiklyn's Free Company, generally to be found in the pilot's seat when one of the CAT's smaller craft needs flying - the company's go-to handler for shuttles and short-range work. Quiet about it in the way long-serving pilots often are, content to leave the louder personalities to argue the strategy and the morality among themselves while he concentrates on whatever it is they have just decided they want him to fly into.

A small, quiet crew member of the Clear Air Turbulence whose taste for hard drinking is matched only by his preference for keeping his head down. Neisin favours projectile weapons over the lasers most of the Company carry, an idiosyncrasy his crewmates have learned not to argue with, and tends to vanish into a bottle whenever the Free Company's adventures leave too much time between violence and reflection.

The stocky, capable engineer of the Clear Air Turbulence. Good-natured and practical, Wubslin keeps Kraiklyn's ageing ship running through the Free Company's increasingly reckless ventures, and is the crew member most at home tinkering with machinery - whether it's the CAT's failing systems or whatever salvage the company has just laid hands on.

A Mondlidician member of Kraiklyn's Free Company - tall, thin, middle-aged, his face marked with the homeworld scars he wears with unrepentant pride and a permanent look of mild disdain for whatever's in front of him. Jandraligeli affects an air of bored sophistication around the rest of the crew, ignoring new recruits as a matter of policy (Yalson notes he does this with everyone for the first while), and devotes most of his off-duty time to keeping his old but immaculate suit and laser rifle in better condition than they probably deserve.

A Culture drone stranded among the mercenary crew of the Clear Air Turbulence. Fastidious, irritable, and constantly affronted by the company it is forced to keep.