Major characters
- Ben Reich , who lacks moral integrity and is willing to take considerable risks in order to see his wishes carried out. However, he is a very charming man to many around him, especially at the story's beginning when his desperation is still checked. His personal mantra is: "Make your enemies by choice, not by accident". He is about forty, and in his own words "wouldn't trade places with God, or looks with the Devil".
- Lincoln Powell is a Class 1 Esper in his thirties. He is Prefect of Police, which in this case means chief detective. He is handsome, intelligent, charming and well-liked. As the story opens, he is being considered for the Presidency of the Esper Guild, but since he is single and not married to another Esper, as Guild policy requires, he is disqualified. He lives alone in a house, since highly skilled Espers cannot live in apartment blocks where they are bombarded by the thoughts of others. He is said to have a dual personality; behind the correct role of model Esper and perfect cop hides Dishonest Abe, a compulsive liar. Often, Dishonest Abe takes the lead in conversation, with Powell finding himself lying in earnest to anybody, just for the sake of amusing himself. He invents absurd tales of heroic cops who do not exist, or accounts of how the stress of his job causes him to become left-handed temporarily. His most notorious lie gave rise to the question "Who stole the weather, Powell?" which other peepers use to embarrass him, even though few actually know the details.
- Barbara D'Courtney , a very pretty young blonde woman, daughter of Craye D'Courtney, whom Reich pursues to kill and with whom Powell falls in love despite the fact that, according to the Guild rules, he must marry an Esper. However she is revealed to be a latent Esper herself. Having witnessed her father's murder she becomes catatonic. She is given a treatment that regresses her to childhood mentally, expecting that she will come to terms with the tragedy as she returns to her adult self over a period of weeks. During this time Powell attempts to extract information from her subconscious, but is blocked by strange images including one of her and Reich as conjoined twins. This is one clue on the trail to discovering Reich's real motive for murder.
- Mary Noyes , an Esper 2 who is a close friend of Lincoln Powell. She is in fact in love with Powell, but he does not return the affection. Since Guild members are required to marry other Espers as part of the Guild's "Eugenic Plan", she hopes he will eventually marry her anyway. When it becomes obvious to her that Powell, in the process of peeping Barbara D'Courtney, has fallen in love with her, she becomes angry and distant.
- Dr. Augustus "Gus" Tate , psychiatrist and Esper 1, who becomes Reich's ally in murdering Craye D'Courtney. Although he makes millions in fees from his practice, Tate has to pay 95% in taxes to the Esper Guild to further its education, outreach and eugenics programs. He is a member of the ultra-right wing "League of Esper Patriots". Reich offers him riches beyond his dreams, a promise that Tate verifies by peeping Reich. In return Tate warns Reich of Espers that threaten him, peeps the details for D'Courtney's visit to New York from D'Courtney's own physician, Sam @kins, and then after the murder participates in the cover up, peeping the investigators. Tate also finds from his peeping that Reich's motives are not what he believes, and that the dreams of the Man with No Face will not stop when D'Courtney is dead. He refuses to tell Reich the truth about the dreams, believing this gives him a hold over his partner in crime. He dies when Keno Quizzard's men attack Jerry Church's pawn shop in an attempt to kill Lincoln Powell.
Minor characters
- Keno Quizzard, a blind albino (a motif also in The Stars My Destination ) leader of an underworld organization employing "gimpsters" (gangsters), hired by Reich to help find Barbara D'Courtney. Eventually Quizzard is lured into space where he has an "accident" while traveling with Reich.
- Chooka Frood is a corrupt brothel keeper. She keeps a bodyguard (a possible friend-companion-lover) named Magda who has red eyes, laughs continuously, dresses in leather and studs, and is apt to attack at the slightest provocation. Chooka is also a latent telepath, a fact that she uses in her fortune-telling act in the bizarre basement of the brothel. The building is part of Bastion West Side, the site of the last great battle of a war. The fires and explosions caused melted glass and pigments from a ceramics factory to flow into the basement, resulting in a multicolored luminescent floor. The rest of the building consists of boudoirs, voyeur chambers and "The Coop", a network of rooms that can be used to hide fugitives. It is in one of these rooms that Barbara D'Courtney is found, apparently having been scooped off the street by Chooka's pimps after wandering away from the Beaumont house in a catatonic state. Chooka had been using her in the fortune-telling act, though this is not described.
- Duffy Wyg&(read "Wygand"), the composer of the "'Tenser,' said the Tensor" jingle. "To Reich she was the epitome of the modern career girl—the virgin seductress", who seems to crave either humiliation or conquest by men.
- Sam @kins (read "Atkins"), Esper 1 MD, is a top psychiatrist like Gus Tate. Unlike Tate he does not resent his Guild taxes and throws himself into charity work. His home on Venus is full of charity cases and hangers-on. He is a member of the Environmental Clique, who believe that esper ability exists in all people and can be brought out by training. He was also treating Craye D'Courtney, whose personality was disintegrating under, to Atkins, unfounded guilt over child abandonment (the child being Reich). Powell consults him to determine if D'Courtney committed suicide, and in the process learns that Tate had asked him about D'Courtney, apparently on Reich's behalf.
- Jerry Church, Esper 2 (the "2" is struck through with a "/" in the original text) is an ostracised Esper who once helped Reich profit by reading the minds of business rivals. He runs a pawn shop, from which Reich obtains the gun he uses to kill D'Courtney. Reich made millions from Church, but Church lost everything. No Esper will even talk to him, let alone communicate with him telepathically. At one point in the book, he stands outside Powell's house, eavesdropping on the Esper party inside, so great is his need for that kind of contact. Powell detects him and offers him a drink, but Jerry resents his pity, throws it back at him and runs off. After the murder, Jerry passes on information about Barbara D'Courtney's whereabouts to Keno Quizzard, leading Reich to find her at Chooka Frood's just as Powell, alerted by his own investigation, arrives. Later, Keno's men attack his shop with him, Powell, and Tate inside. Tate, foreseeing that his criminal involvement will be his undoing, commits suicide by allowing himself to be destroyed by the effects of the harmonic gun. Powell persuades Jerry to turn against Reich, blaming him for the attack. Jerry's testimony about the gun purchase is a vital piece of evidence.
- Maria Beaumont, a Manhattan socialite known as the "Gilt Corpse". Her body has been surgically enhanced to render it, in the novel's terminology, "pneumatic", a term used in similar context in Brave New World . She flaunts her body at every opportunity. Craye D'Courtney stays at her house when in New York, and it is this that gives Reich his opportunity. He sends Maria an ancient book of party games in which he has made sure that only the game of "Sardines" is legible, knowing that she will insist on playing it at the party, making the entire house pitch-dark in the process. Maria adds her own flourish by insisting that everyone be naked while playing.
Other notable characters
The novel is also rich in "color characters" who only marginally participate in the plot but lend humor or depth to the narrative.
- "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" - three telepaths with eidetic memories who act as Lincoln Powell's personal secretaries, walking encyclopedias, and recorders of his conversations with officials such as Police Commissioner Crabbe. For instance, when Powell is seeking clearance from Crabbe to pursue Reich, they remind him of a previous conversation where Crabbe admitted that Reich had supported him when he ran for Solar Senator. They also are privy to his personal secrets, mostly embarrassing episodes of "Dishonest Abe".
- Snim Asj - a stereotypical punk and street hustler who is one of Chooka Frood's tenants. Threatened with eviction for non-payment of rent, he protests that Chooka is making a fortune from the "yellow-head girl" (Barbara D'Courtney). While attempting to raise cash, he spreads the story around on the street, resulting in both Reich and Powell being told where Barbara can be found.
- T'Sung is the current President of the Esper Guild. Powell enters his office while he is dictating an angry letter to the League of Esper Patriots. T'Sung is pugnacious and blustering, yelling at his secretaries while exchanging telepathic jibes with Powell. The secretaries are accustomed to this, knowing that it is his way of dealing with the stress of the job. T'Sung wants Powell to marry a peeper as soon as possible so that he can take on the job.
- De Santis is the head of the crime lab who investigates the murder scene and later is in charge of constructing the model simulation of the crime for presentation to the District Attorney. He is irritable at the best of times. Powell is "peppery" with him because De Santis is "comfortable in no other relationship". The lack of evidence at the crime scene drives him to distraction. The only recoverable evidence is a piece of gel, which he interprets to mean that D'Courtney was eating candy, an impossibility given that he had throat cancer.
- Police Commissioner Crabbe is the story's buffoon. He is either a political appointee or an elected official. In either case, he is reluctant to support Powell's pursuit of Reich. When Powell and his staff are preparing their presentation for the District Attorney, he bursts in to insist that they end the persecution of his "good friend, Ben Reich". Powell "accidentally" sets off one of Reich's tiny rhodopsin-ionizing capsules under his nose, rendering him unconscious. Later, after Powell's case collapses, Reich goes to see the Commissioner. Crabbe offers profuse apologies, trying to divert Reich into supporting his political ambitions while assuring him that Powell will suffer. Only at the end, as Powell explains the real reasons behind Reich's crime, and how he exposed it, does Crabbe appear sympathetic. Even then, after the interview Powell admits to having manipulated Crabbe to ensure his future support.
- Monarch's Chief of Personnel Recruitment - never actually named, this man is an Esper 2 with a passion for workplace efficiency. In his own words, telepathy is just another skill subject to work-time requirements. As Reich arrives at Monarch, ready to offer merger to D'Courtney, the Chief is lambasting his staff for sending him unsuitable candidates for final review. He aims to vet at least 6 per hour for his 8-hour day, with no more than 35% rejections. He then insists on Reich hiring Blonn, a Class 1 Esper, to vet Esper candidates. He justifies this by quoting the time that it would take him to thoroughly vet Esper 3 and Esper 2 candidates, finishing by saying that he could not vet an Esper 1 at all. In doing so he sets out some of the basic story information: that in the Guild there are about 100,000 Class 3 Espers, 10,000 Class 2 Espers and 1,000 Class 1 Espers. At the same time Reich's own Esper secretary is making jibes telepathically, which is typical of the irreverent culture of Espers as it is depicted in the novel.
- "Old Man Mose" is the "Mosaic Multiplex Prosecution Computor" of the District Attorney's office. It appears briefly after Powell believes he has completed the case against Reich. The machine is, in the words of one character, "kittenish", humorously printing out apparently nonsensical legal language when first switched on. Its hardware and actions are described as if it was a person. All major cases have to be reviewed by Mose. Initially the machine rejects the case for "insufficient documentation of passion motive". This is another indication that Reich's motivations were not what even he thought. Mose is persuaded to focus on the profit motive and produces a favorable prediction. At that point the actual reply D'Courtney sent to Reich's merger offer appears, showing that there was no profit motive. The case against Reich collapses. The machine provides humor and drama at a story point where simple exposition would have had less impact. It also reflects a motif of a machine's unexpected pronouncements driving the story, which appears again in The Stars My Destination .
