 Why doesn't Charlie want to go with Laura and Mickey?
Spacemen Die at Home By EDWARD W. LUDWIG Illustrated by THORNE One man's retreat is another's prison ... and it takes a heap of flying to make a hulk a home! How can I tell you what it's like to be young and a man and to dream of reaching the stars? And yet, at the same time, to be filled with a terrible, gnawing fear—a fear locked in my mind during the day and bursting out like an evil jack-in-the-box at night. The Academy, with its great halls and classrooms and laboratories, lay hollow and silent, an exhausted thing at sleep after spawning its first-born. For it was June in this year of 1995, and we were the graduating class of the U. S. Academy of Interplanetary Flight. The first graduating class, Laura. Below us was a beach of faces, most of them strange, shining like pebbles in the warm New Mexican sunlight. They're going to bring us the metals and minerals that we desperately need. They're going to find new land for our colonists, good rich land that will bear food and be a home for our children. And perhaps most important of all, they'll make other men think of the stars and look up at them and feel humility—for mankind needs humility." The speaker was Robert Chandler, who'd brought the first rocket down on Mars just five years ago, who'd established the first colony there, and who had just returned from his second hop to Venus. I was worshiping him and hating him at the same time, for I was thinking: He's already reached Mars and Venus. Let him leave Jupiter and the others alone! Mickey Cameron, sitting next to me, dug an elbow into my ribs. My parents had died in a strato-jet crash when I was four, so I hadn't needed many of those "You are cordially invited" cards. Just one, which I'd sent to Charlie Taggart.
 Charlie is dying and Ben is the only family he has. He wants to spend his last moments with Ben.
 Charlie is not really a people person. He likes Ben, but that's about it.  Charlie is very self-conscious about his scars. He is uncomfortable around other people.  Charlie is uncomfortable with Laura and Mickey's wealth. He feels a bit shabby because his coat is missing a button.  Charlie is dying and Ben is the only family he has. He wants to spend his last moments with Ben.