Charles Zoltan
Charles Zoltan (PROSE: Night of the Yssgaroth [+]Loading...["Night of the Yssgaroth (novel)"]) was the leader and founder of SIGNET. He owned a toy ferret called Mr Fizzle. (PROSE: Hervoken Halloween [+]Loading...["Hervoken Halloween (short story)"])
Charles was human, but had an adoptive mother who was an alien and bestowed a number of "gifts" upon him, including an augmented lifespan. In the first half of the 20th century, an already mature Zoltan was a member of LONGBOW, during the course of which he had an adventure in 1938 with Grant Markham and a friend of his who wore a multi-coloured coat, (PROSE: Night of the Yssgaroth [+]Loading...["Night of the Yssgaroth (novel)"]) the Sixth Doctor. (PROSE: Time of Your Life [+]Loading...["Time of Your Life (novel)"], etc.) However, LONGBOW was eventually disbanded due to failing to prevent the Second World War.
Much later, Zoltan decided to use his own savings to create SIGNET, a freelance organisation, browbeating government official Sir Henry Farthing into giving them official permission to operate within the British isles. (PROSE: Night of the Yssgaroth [+]Loading...["Night of the Yssgaroth (novel)"]) After she joined the organisation, Charles quickly became a kind of surrogate uncle to Aoife Fitzgerald. However, the two sometimes came at odds, in part because Charles was more willing to give threatening aliens the benefit of the doubt than Aoife, at least when she felt that her young daughter Norah was in danger. (PROSE: Hervoken Halloween [+]Loading...["Hervoken Halloween (short story)"])
After bumping into Xanara Pasam shortly after her arrival on Earth, he made it clear that he had recognised her as an alien in a holographic disguise, but offered her a spot on the team. She was initially reluctant, unwilling to put herself in danger, but was forced to meet with SIGNET again because Zoltan had dropped an alien pendant (passed down from his mother) during their encounter and she had to give it back. She ended up falling in with SIGNET completely after helping them defeat the Yssgaroth. During the course of this adventure, Charles learned of her true identity and was initially hurt by the breach of trust of her not revealing her identity to him, but later came to realise that Xana was not responsible for the crimes of which she was accused in any meaningful ethical sense; turning around once again, he offered her a permanent position and identity within SIGNET, and even told her she could stay in a spare bedroom at his own house. Shortly after the incident, he had another meeting with Sir Henry, who berated SIGNET for not controlling the death toll further. (PROSE: Night of the Yssgaroth [+]Loading...["Night of the Yssgaroth (novel)"])
Shortly after Xana formally joined, Charles drove her to a coffee shop for a surprise which turned out to be a tea-date with Claire, an old woman whom Xana had met during the Yssgaroth crisis, greatly enjoying her company which made her feel unusually safe. Charles explained that he felt it would help Xana cope to have a friend who was uninvolved with SIGNET. (PROSE: Coda [+]Loading...["Coda (short story)"])
A few days before Halloween, Norah came under the thrall of a Hervoken, nicknamed "Hervy"; Charles ended up helping Aoife to kill it, but had previously hesitated, something which Aoife resented. When he dropped in on the Fitzgeralds again on Halloween proper to check on Norah's recovery, she told him that she would resign from SIGNET if she ever felt he put her daughter in danger again. Charles was pained by the sentiment, but they nevertheless rekindled their friendship. (PROSE: Hervoken Halloween [+]Loading...["Hervoken Halloween (short story)"])
