A man in over his head who is very good at pretending otherwise.
A career House functionary assigned to Procyon as a semiformal punishment. He knows it. His staff knows it. He compensates by running the most aggressively neutral administration in the sector — refusing to authorize anything that could blow back on him, refusing to block anything that a more powerful party wants. He collects Ur artifacts, which everyone knows, and which he justifies as "cultural preservation."
Varn is the political obstruction that Ohe keeps running into. He won't authorize warrants, won't declassify the survey files, and won't support sector-level operations because he's terrified of what happens if the Core finds out Malklaith knew about the lattice. His inaction is a direct cause of Ohe operating illegally.
Varn has one of the five lattice artifacts in his collection. He acquired it at auction on Sonhandra. He doesn't know what it is. It's been sitting in a display case in the Governor's mansion on Warren, very slowly awakening, for three years.