Characters:
Vere Collis-
Griss Lugard- Sector-Captain, the "Dark Piper"
Dinan- keeps the records
Gytha- helps keeps records

Planets/Places:
Beltane- '…unique among the Scorpio Sector planets in that it was never intended for general settlement instead was set up as a biological experimental station. By some freak of nature, it had a climate acceptable to our species, but there was no intelligent native life, nor, indeed any life very high in scale. Its richly vegetated continents numbered two, with wide seas spaced between. The eastern one was left to what native life there was. The Reserves and the hamlets and farms of the experimental staff were all placed upon the western one, radiating out from a single spaceport. As a functioning unit in the Confederation scheme, Beltane had been in existence about a century at the outbreak of the Four Sectors War. That war lasted ten planet years.'

Terms/Tech:
Zero tape- recording media for keeping records.
power pack- battery
Confederation- (space government mentioned in The Beast Master / Lord of Thunder, Ice Crown)
Four Sectors War- lasted 10 (Beltane) years.
Security-
Jacks-