Frank Compton is an agent with the Spiders.
That is a pretty odd introduction but then again, the Spiders are pretty strange themselves and they are just the representatives of the even stranger Chahwyn and ... I am going too fast.
First, I need to state that all this is taking place in the future. What year it is, I cannot say, but it is quite some time from now. Earth is part of the Terran Confederation, a 'empire' of five worlds. That is but one of 12 recognized 'empires' in this region of the galaxy.
Compton was an agent with Western Alliance Intelligence. He was a highly respected and valued operative with that organization for several years, being "a well-trained observer, investigator, and analyst" up until the time they left him go for "professional indiscretion". That is a fancy way of saying he had "sparked a major furor in the press, been responsible for a handful of political scapegoats having their heads handed to them in the hallowed halls of the United Nations, and earned myself the permanent loathing of both the secretary-general and the Directorate in the process".
Because he spoke up when he felt he had to, despite being told not to, he was out of a job and needing work.
That is when the Spiders came with an offer. These alien people (best learned of by reading the adventures) maintain the impressive Quadrail system of transportation throughout the known galaxy. When they come across worrisome intel that a major disruption of the system is being planned, they know they need someone to investigate it and, when appropriate, take action. They need someone like Compton.
When we first meet him, Compton is 32 years old, single, and getting increasingly bored with not having something to occupy his time and mind. That might be why he is somewhat receptive to the overture made by the representative of the Spiders to get him to help them out; that and The Girl.
That is how he initially thought of Bayta before he was introduced to him.
She is around 22 years old with short dark brown hair and eyes that matched the hair, possessing a "slender, trim figure of someone who exercised to keep in shape... Her face was pretty enough, but there was a strange sort of distance to her eyes that was more than a little disconcerting". She also works for the spiders and when Compton agrees to go to work for them, she becomes his side-kick, so to speak. Though she looks very much like a human, she is actually a "symbiotic hybrid of Human and Chahwyn" who is able to use telepathy to communicate with both the Chahwyn and the Spiders.