Yuri Voroshilov

Yuri Ivanovich Vorishilov was a cosmonaut, botanist, and KGB agent who travelled to Minerva aboard the space shuttle Tsiolovsky. While Oleg Lopatin was known to be a chekist to all the crew, Voroshilov was planted secretly. Not even Lopatin knew of his identity.

Voroshilov was a quiet, shy, solitary individual. It was suggested by his crew members that, if anyone could have survived the Tsiolovsky's three-year mission alone and come through with his sanity intact, it was Voroshilov. However, he loved Katerina Zakharova madly, and though he was far too shy to approach her until many months into the mission, he wrote passionate, sensuous love poetry in her honor. He intended to keep this poetry deeply private, but it was discovered by Oleg Lopatin when the other chekist spied on Voroshilov's file. Voroshilov was furious. He was even more angered when he suspected that Lopatin had beaten Voroshilov and approacked Shota Rustaveli with a proposal that the two beat Lopatin as punishment. Rustaveli declined to take part in the plan, instead alerting Sergei Tolmasov to the problem. Tolmasov launched an investigation, but nothing came of it, only adding to Voroshilov's ire.

Voroshilov finally exposed himself as a KGB agent when he discovered Shota Rustaveli giving the American sace shuttle Athena advance warning of the Skarmer invasion of Omalo territory. Voroshilov cut off Rustaveli's transmission and would have punished Rustaveli, but Rustaveli appealed to Voroshilov's sense of decency, finally asking "Would Katya have wanted you to cut me off?"