character Holden Reluctant ice-hauler officer with an Earth past, who logged a fatal distress call and lost his ship.
character Miller World-weary Ceres detective, hat-wearing Earther-born cop quietly obsessed with a missing rich girl.
character Naomi Sharp, loyal Belter engineer of the Canterbury, the steady technical heart of its salvage crew.
character Avasarala Ruthless, grandmotherly UN power broker on Earth who tortures a Belter and sees a coming war.
character Julie Mao Runaway shipping heiress turned radical, a missing-person case and a desperate recorded voice.
character Shed The Canterbury's amiable medic, easygoing about bio-gel and prosthetics, swept up in the salvage run.
character Anderson Dawes The OPA's powerful, silver-tongued boss on Ceres, who quietly runs the station and probes Miller's loyalties.
character Fred Johnson OPA-aligned director of Tycho Station, an Earther ex-colonel, haunted by the massacre he led at Anderson Station.
character Jules Pierre Mao Ruthless shipping magnate behind the protomolecule conspiracy, who harvests the weapon from his own dead daughter.
character Kenzo Slippery corporate spy who hitched onto the Rocinante, betrayed Holden on Eros, and was left to die infected.