Surl was a Human customs agent for the Cormond spaceport on Brentaal IV. He had a red trimmed beard, was heavy and rotund, and seemed to be perpetually sweating. His air of bureaucratic denseness belied his true nature, as an ambitious and corrupt agent of the Imperial Security Bureau. Surl's lover was Dania, a member of a Brentaal IV Rebel cell almost as corrupt as Surl himself.