Editing The Puppet Masters (section)

==Characters==
* Sam, born Elihu Nivens, is the classic Heinlein hero, multi-talented, independent, fiercely loyal to friends and an implacable enemy to foes. He is thirtyish, but has changed appearance so many times even he has doubts as to how he originally looked.
* Mary, born Allucquere in a religious commune in Antarctica before growing up on Venus, is Heinlein's classic heroine.  She is beautiful, red-headed, hard-nosed and brilliant. Sam describes her as having the "real redheaded saurian bony structure to her skull". Her professional exterior conceals psychological scars from her encounter with the slugs as a child. Only the Old Man knows the truth about her, thanks to the deep hypnotic analysis that all agents have to undergo.
* The Old Man, born Andrew Nivens, is the head of a top secret government agency that he wishes did not have to exist, doing his job reluctantly because nobody else would do it properly. He represents the third of Heinlein's favorite types of character, the "wise, grumpy old man".  He is the first in the line that includes [[Jubal Harshaw]], [[The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress#Characters|Professor Bernardo de la Paz]], [[I Will Fear No Evil|Johann Sebastian Bach Smith]], [[Gulf (novella)#Characters|"Kettle Belly" Baldwin]], and the later life of [[Lazarus Long]].