Character from deaths-end by
Bunker Era physicist who guides Cheng Xin through the abandoned ghost-city of Lightspeed II — the failed black-domain laboratory that almost saved the Solar System.
Cao Bin is one of the last remaining specialists on the black-domain project — the attempt to lower the speed of light around the Solar System and so post a 'safe, no threat' sign to the dark forest. He shows Cheng Xin the corpse of that project, Lightspeed II, drifting at the Sun-Jupiter L2 point: a science city wrapped around a microscopic black hole built from compressed Jovian moon. He treats the apparatus with a curator's tenderness and the project's failure with a scientist's grief. He is the kind of researcher who mourns abandoned hypotheses by name.
Late thirties, stocky, perpetually ungroomed beard. Wears a loose engineer's coverall with too many pockets. Speaks with a lecturer's enthusiasm even on the worst topics. Always carrying a tablet. Pushes his glasses up his nose when he is about to deliver bad news.
Also known as: 曹彬