 What does the dead man represent for Ben?
A Coffin for Jacob By EDWARD W. LUDWIG Illustrated by EMSH With never a moment to rest, the pursuit through space felt like a game of hounds and hares ... or was it follow the leader? Ben Curtis eased his pale, gaunt body through the open doorway of the Blast Inn, the dead man following silently behind him. The place was like an evil caldron steaming with a brew whose ingredients had been culled from the back corners of three planets. Most of the big room lay obscured behind a shimmering veil of tobacco smoke and the sweet, heavy fumes of Martian Devil's Egg. For an instant, Ben's mind rose above the haunting vision of the dead man. But he'd become a kind of invisible Siamese twin, as much a part of Ben as sight in his eyes. Again, its face would be a pop-eyed mask of surprise as Ben's fist thudded into its jaw. You can defeat him or submit to him or ignore him, and the matter is over and done. It had begun a week ago in Luna City. Ben, quietly and moderately, wanted to celebrate. At sixteen, he'd spent every weekend holiday hitchhiking from Boys Town No. 5 in the Catskills to Long Island Spaceport. There, among the grizzled veterans of the old Moon Patrol, he'd found friends who understood his dream and who later recommended his appointment to the U. S. Academy for the Conquest of Space. And a month ago, he'd signed aboard the Odyssey —the first ship, it was rumored, equipped to venture as far as the asteroids and perhaps beyond. Until this instant, Ben had suppressed his anger. You can give yourself up, and that's what a good officer would do. Under interplanetary law, that would mean ten years in prison and a dishonorable discharge. They don't want new men over thirty-four for officers on rockets or even for third-class jet-men on beat-up freighters—they don't want convicted killers. Or— There were old wives' tales of a group of renegade spacemen who operated from the Solar System's frontiers. They were misfits, rejectees from the clearing houses on Earth. And whereas no legally recognized ship had ventured past Mars, the souped-up renegade rigs had supposedly hit the asteroids. So , Ben reflected, you can take a beer-and-pretzels tale seriously. You can hide for a couple of days, get rid of your uniform, change your name.
 His conscious. He is manifesting as Ben's unaddressed guilt, and what he can never run away from.
 His conscious. He is manifesting as Ben's rage, and the anger that he felt during the incident.  The end of his freedom. He represents his new life as an outlaw.  His conscious. He is manifesting as Ben's unaddressed guilt, and what he can never run away from.  The end of his career. He sees the dead man as the loss of his livelihood.