IPA Director

The short, heavy old man who runs the International Permit Agency — and, unofficially, one of the handful of 'sole survivors' who came back from the Dark Continent physically and mentally intact. He initiated Steiner in the corpse-lined agency basement, supplied the V5 the warnings that shaped the V6 accommodation, and dictated Beyond's six-clause custody contract to Cheadle by phone. He stays ashore; his agency rides the ship.

Addendum ch.341Walks his newly assigned deputy secretary through the IPA basement: wrung-out corpses recovered on the known world's side and a Hunter kept alive fifty years by the Zobae immortality disease. He hands Steiner the East edition of Journey to the New World, warns that the Gatekeeper hates ill-mannered visitors, and orders a report within the week.

Addendum ch.342After Steiner's V5 briefing he congratulates his protégé — laughing that the young man is just like him — and answers his misgivings with the agency's creed: their duty was to warn and to propose a safer route to people already set on going. An honest world would be best, but peace matters more.

Addendum ch.345By phone, he orders Cheadle to bind Beyond with a six-clause contract — one violation means life in prison — and to start a riot broadcast to the whole world if he breaks it. A bureaucrat positioned to threaten the Hunter Association's own chairman.

Addendum ch.359Peuckert names him among the unofficial 'sole survivors': in his youth he visited the Dark Continent and returned sound — the quiet credential underneath his authority.