 What would have happened if Ledman had stayed on Earth?
The planet itself was tough enough—barren, desolate, forbidding; enough to stop the most adventurous and dedicated. But they had to run head-on against a mad genius who had a motto: Death to all Terrans! "The surest way to die out here on Mars is to give up." Nothing but what had stopped us could stop a sandcat: sand in the delicate mechanism of the atomic engine. But no; she blamed it all on me somehow: So we were out walking on the spongy sand of the Martian desert. "Maybe there isn't any uranium in this sector at all. Behind us somewhere was the comfort of the Dome, ahead nothing but the mazes and gullies of this dead world. Remember—we're doing this for Earth. She had been just as much inflamed by the idea of coming to Mars to help in the search for uranium as I was. We knew the pay was poor, but we had felt it a sort of obligation, something we could do as individuals to keep the industries of radioactives-starved Earth going. And we'd always had a roving foot, both of us. No, we had decided together to come to Mars—the way we decided together on everything. I longed to lie down on the soft, spongy Martian sand and bury myself. I felt almost guilty for having dragged her out to Mars, until I recalled that I hadn't. Twelve steps later, I decided this was about as far as we could go. I stopped, slipped out of the geiger harness, and lowered myself ponderously to the ground. She slid down beside me, curled up, and in a moment she was fast asleep, sprawled out on the sands. Maybe we shouldn't have come to Mars after all. I looked down at Valerie's sleeping form, and thought of our warm, comfortable little home on Earth. I watched her, sleeping peacefully, a wayward lock of her soft blonde hair trailing down over one eyebrow, and it seemed hard to believe that we'd exchanged Earth and all it held for us for the raw, untamed struggle that was Mars. It's because we wanted to keep what we had. We just liked our comforts, and wanted to keep them. We had no ties on Earth that couldn't be broken without much difficulty. The wind blasted a mass of sand into my face, and I felt it tinkle against the oxymask.
 He might not have needed a wheelchair long-term
 He would've managed to maintain leadership of his company  He might not have needed a wheelchair long-term  He would have joined the Project Sea-Dredge mission  He would've become more depressed and never found revenge