Tor Rassam

Tor Rassam is a scholiast of HAPSIS -- the covert Imperial intelligence apparatus known as the Carnival -- and the galaxy's foremost expert on the Vaiartu Kingdom, the amphibious Stonebuilder civilization. A golden-haired, blue-eyed palatine, he has been with HAPSIS longer than his superior Friedrich Oberlin and was involved with the Echidna dig; his name appears in documents Hadrian and Valka previously encountered at Maddalo House.

Rassam serves as the expedition's primary translator and interpreter of Vaiartu culture at the Phanamhara excavation. Working alongside Tor Carter, he holographs and catalogues the galleries of the pantheon, rendering the sineoform syllabary into human speech for Hadrian. His translations reveal the inscriptions' account of the creation of the Vaiartu's first king, Sunamasra-Teäplu, identify the Watcher depicted in the friezes as Masutemu, and establish that the Obadam -- "the Liar" -- was counted an enemy of the Watchers. He also leads the scientific analysis of the Mann bodies' anomalous wounds and explains higher-dimensional physics to Cassandra in the morgue.