 What isn't true about Charlie?
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. 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." I was worshiping him and hating him at the same time, for I was thinking: He's already reached Mars and Venus. Just one, which I'd sent to Charlie Taggart. I remembered how, as a kid, I'd pestered him in the Long Island Spaceport, tagging after him like a puppy, and how he'd grown to like me until he became father, mother, and buddy all in one to me. The Universe was mighty big, but with two of us to face it together, it would be only half as big. They expect us to make a new kind of civilization and a better place out of Earth. He was his normal, boyish self again, walking lightly, his blond, curly-haired skull swaying as if in rhythm with some silent melody. And you, Laura, were with him. But your eyes were the eyes of a woman, glowing like dark stars and reflecting a softness, a gentleness that I'd never seen in eyes before. Charlie scorned the skin-tight uniforms of the government service and wore a shiny black suit that was a relic of Everson's early-day Moon Patrol. You shook hands and said, softly: "It's a privilege to meet you, Charlie. Charlie gulped helplessly, and Mickey said: "Still going to spend the weekend with us, aren't you, Ben?" A moment later Mickey said, frowning, "What was he talking about, Ben? That's what most of you want, isn't it? I looked at you as if you were Everson himself, because you seemed to understand the hunger that could lie in a man's heart.
 he regretted the life he chose
 he was a great space traveler  he regretted the life he chose  he drugged himself to watch Ben graduate  he was sick with lung-rot