RCE's kindly provisional governor of New Terra, killed in the sabotaged shuttle's crash before he could take office.
Governor Trying was the provisional governor appointed to lead Royal Charter Energy's colony on Ilus/New Terra. Avuncular and gentle, he ruled the thousand souls aboard the Edward Israel with a ready, reassuring smile. On the observation deck he found Elvi Okoye admiring the new world and told her she would be famous, adding, cryptically, that while they were doing some things humanity had never done, they were also doing 'some things we have always done,' and that he hoped history would treat them gently.
He rode down on the doomed heavy shuttle and was killed when Basia Merton's sabotage brought it crashing onto a dry lake bed — leaving no one clearly in charge of the colony and opening the power vacuum that Adolphus Murtry moves to fill.
A thin man with mahogany skin and snow-dust white hair, a soft, amused expression and a ready, warm smile reminiscent of a kindly uncle.
RCE's provisional colony governor; his death in the crash removes the expedition's legitimate leadership.