The Behemoth's Pallas-born science officer turns Martian observations into the first coherent picture of the Ring as an active wormhole gate.
Chan Bao-Zhi is the Behemoth's science officer, a man of Chinese ancestry born and culturally formed on Pallas Station. As the OPA flagship reaches The Ring, he briefs Captain Klaes Ashford, Michio Pa, Carlos “Bull” de Baca, and the ship's department heads using observations of experiments Mars has reported only selectively.
Chan identifies the Ring as an artificially sustained Einstein-Rosen bridge, probably built by the protomolecule as the first step in creating convenient travel to the solar system. The Y Que's crossing heated the structure to roughly five thousand kelvin and activated conformational changes. Inside, ordinary mass exceeding about six hundred meters per second is stopped and redirected, while light behaves normally. Probes reveal between a hundred and a hundred thousand large objects in the darkness. Chan cannot tell whether they are ships, but his first audible dread arrives when he admits something is there.
Chan is a male Belter from Pallas Station with Chinese ancestry and a low-gravity-adapted frame. His age, hair, clothing, and specific facial features are not described.
Chan is the Behemoth's principal interpreter of Ring science, translating incomplete Martian data into operational knowledge for OPA command.