The Sirens of Titan characters

Appears from the start

The richest and reputedly luckiest man in America, heir to a fortune assembled by his father through a mysterious investment system. Malachi is charming, self-indulgent, and accustomed to treating his good fortune as proof that he deserves it. A meeting with Winston Niles Rumfoord confronts him with a detailed prediction of a future he finds humiliating and impossible.

Appears from the start

A wealthy space traveler who entered a chrono-synclastic infundibulum with his dog Kazak and now materializes on Earth only at regular intervals. Existing across a broad span of time, Rumfoord knows much of Malachi's future and presents it with the confident manner of a host arranging an elaborate social occasion.

Appears from the start

Rumfoord's dignified wife, who remains at their Newport estate and receives visitors during his periodic materializations. She dislikes both Malachi and Rumfoord's prediction that her own future will become inseparable from his.

Appears from the start

The Rumfoords' large dog and Winston's companion on the space flight that carried them into the chrono-synclastic infundibulum. Kazak now shares Rumfoord's wave-like existence and appears with him during materializations.

First appears in chapter 2

Malachi's late father, a withdrawn businessman who turned a modest sum into an immense fortune by following an apparently meaningless sequence of letters in selecting investments. His methods left Malachi wealthy but provided little understanding of what the fortune was for.

First appears in chapter 2

The president of Malachi's corporate empire and the practical steward of the Constant fortune. Fern understands that the apparently effortless wealth rests on Noel Constant's peculiar investment instructions and warns Malachi when extravagance and failing luck threaten the structure.

First appears in chapter 4

A soldier in the Martian army whose memories are repeatedly erased and whose obedience is enforced by an implanted antenna that causes pain when he resists orders. Unk knows that he once had another life but must reconstruct even the most basic facts about himself from clues left before his latest memory treatment.

First appears in chapter 4

A Martian soldier assigned alongside Unk. Boaz understands more about the control antennas than he first admits and enjoys the small authority the system gives him, though his attachment to Unk complicates the part he has been ordered to play.

First appears in chapter 5

A fellow Martian soldier whom Unk remembers as his closest friend. Stony has been punished by the army, and Unk's struggle to recover what happened to him becomes central to understanding the machinery of obedience surrounding them.

First appears in chapter 5

A woman serving within the Martian forces who is known to Unk chiefly through fragments of memory and a secret letter he wrote to himself. She and her child are among the personal facts the army's memory treatments have tried to keep from him.

First appears in chapter 5

Bee's young son, born into the Martian settlement and adapted to its military life. He carries a small metal good-luck piece and remains emotionally distant from the adults whose lost histories shape his circumstances.

First appears in chapter 12

A stranded traveler from Tralfamadore who has waited on Titan for an enormous span of time beside his disabled spacecraft. Salo's long mission and his relationship with Rumfoord supply the final explanation for the apparently purposeless movements of human history.