Space Apprentice

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Title Space Apprentice

Author	Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Original title	Стажёры
Translator	Antonina W. Bouis
Country	Soviet Union
Language	Russian
Genre(s)	Science fiction novel
Publisher	Macmillan Publishers
Released	1962
Released in English	1981
Media type	Print (Hardback)
ISBN	ISBN 0-02-615220-7
Preceded by	The Way to Amalthea

Space Apprentice, also known as Probationers (Russian title: Стажёры, Stazhory), is one of the early novels of Russian science fiction writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. It is set in the Noon Universe following The Land of Crimson Clouds and The Way to Amalthea, hundreds of years before the other Noon novels.

This is the Strugatsky brothers' final hard-SF novel, and it gives reasons why they decided to move into social science fiction instead.

[edit] Plot summary

The novel is centered around Yuri Borodin, a young space welder. Yuri missed the spaceship that was to take him to his new workplace, because his mother was sick. He hitchhikes to his destination on a ship crewed by many of the characters of The Land of Crimson Clouds.

The story starts with an appearance by Grisha Bykov - Bykov's son - (see Characters in early Strugatsky novels), and Dauge saying goodbye to Bykov senior and Yurkovsky leaving on a mission from international spaceport Mirza-Charle, and Dauge meeting his ex-wife, Yurkovsky's sister. In the meanwhile, Yuri Borodin is also in the spaceport, trying to find a ride. Spaceport authorities direct him to the commander, but he is currently out of town. The let-down Yuri wanders into a Capitalist-run bar, where the owner-cum-bartender is engaged in an ideological debate with a Russian Communist. Yuri befriends the man, Ivan Zhilin, and tells him of his troubles. Ivan knows of a solution, and tells Yuri to go to a hotel room after 9 PM, and try to convince the inhabitants to take him along. Yuri does so, and thus meets Bykov and Yurkovsky. Yurkovsky, currently serving as Chief Supervisor, will make a long tour of several planets and planetoids, Bykov commanding his ship. They agree to drop Yuri off at the appropriate point.

Their first stop is Mars, where Russian colonists are defending themselves from a hostile life form, the giant slug. As a committee is planning a large-scale slug hunt, they realize they have completely missed the fact that there were buildings in the area that were definitely not manmade. Since the buildings look so much like the simple prefab structures set up by the colonists, everyone just assumed they were left there by previous shifts. Some colonists lament the lack of initiative that has descended over the colony in recent years, and Yurkovsky agrees. The raid on slugs, carried out in part using weapons brought by Yurkovsky, is reasonably successful, and the general outlook becomes brighter.

On the way to research station Einomia, the spaceship staff runs an emergency drill, and Yuri, while very stressed and confused, holds up to the pressure.

Einomia is severely overcrowded, because so many physicists want to use its equipment and the research opportunities it provides that they gladly put up with such inconveniences as sleeping in the elevator and food shortages. Yurkovsky disapproves, but gives part of his own food reserves to the hungry physicists and sets the crew of Einomia as a great example for Yuri.

The planetoid Bamberga, home to mines where decorative "space pearls" are being extracted, is run by Capitalists. Miners pride themselves on being independent, but their insistence on working more than six hours a day – which is a limit set due to dangerous radiation levels inside the mines – to make more money results in most of them dying a few years after they return to Earth. The Hungarian Communist commissar protests, pointing out that this is completely against international regulations, but he receives death threats and even gets shot at. Upon his arrival, Yurkovsky arrests the mines' CEO and tells the miners to choose a temporary leader. Since miners resist the changes violently, Yurkovsky doesn't have much hope for an improvement of the situation, but then a miner returns the pearls he left in the CEO's office, and says not all miners are alike.

Back on the ship, Yuri and Zhilin watch an action flick about spacefaring heroes, and the young Yuri becomes greatly enthused. Zhilin explains the great oversimplications in movies, and how life is much more complicated and a lot less glamorous than its pop-culture dramatizations. He alludes to events in The Land of Crimson Clouds.

In the Diona observatory, the crew produces great scientific advances, but they are constantly at each other's throats. Yuri gets into a fight with one of the young researchers, and as a result it turns out that two people were spreading nasty rumors about the others to increase their own chances of promotion. Yurkovsky orders them back to Earth and even tells one of them to kill himself. He says that these two men duped the rest of the crew so successfully because many people in modern (ie. Communist) society are not accustomed to others blatantly lying to them, and they are too proud to try and figure out the truth by themselves.

They arrive on Saturn, and stop at the station Ring One. Yuri will be transported to Ring Two, his workplace, from here. The thermal regulation system is broken, and people have to endure wildly different temperatures in different parts of the station. Yurkovsky wants to see the rings of Saturn, that he has done so much research on in his earlier days, because this is in all likelihood his final visit in space; he is getting too old to board a spaceship. The same is true for navigator Krutikov, whom Yurkovsky picks as his rocket pilot. On their trip, Yurkovsky notices an exceedingly strange rock formation, and urges Krutikov to fly closer, despite the danger. Bykov orders them through their radio link to stop. The desperate Yurkovsky attacks Krutikov and breaks the radio. Krutikov yields and descends. He leaves the ship to investigate the formation, while Bykov is speeding toward them on the spaceship that was supposed to leave for Ring Two, with Yuri on board.

Yurkovsky and Krutikov get hit by a meteorite as was feared, and die, while Yuri is injured and hospitalized. He ponders how people will think of the new discovery as very important, but they will not remember the people who carried it out; he wishes that no discovery would be made and the two would still be alive.

Bykov and Zhilin return to Earth, and meet a sickly Dauge. He breaks the news to Bykov that a new expedition to planet Transpluton, also known as Cerberus, is in the works, and they would prefer him to be captain. Bykov apathetically says yes. Zhilin, however, thinks that he'd prefer to stay on Earth, because "that what is the most important will always remain on Earth."

[edit] Characters

Main article: Characters in early Strugatsky novels

[edit] Release details

The novel has been published in English (Space Apprentice), Hungarian (Újonc a világűrben). The original Russian edition also included the short story, "The Gigantic Fluctuation", and the English edition featured a foreword by Theodore Sturgeon.

• Стругацкий, Аркадий и Борис. СТАЖЕРЫ: Науч.-фантаст. повесть. Предисл. изд-ва; Худож. А.Билюкин. - М.: Мол. гвардия, 1962.
• Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris. Space Apprentice. Translated by Antonina W. Bouis. London: MacMillan Publishers, 1981.
• Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris. Probationers. Translated by Boris Pogoriller. Available online.
• Sztrugackij, Arkagyij és Borisz. Újonc a világűrben. Translated by Gyula Füzesi. Budapest: Európa, 1965.