 What would have happened if Charley had not been on the ship?
Illustrated by Schoenherr The wind howled out of the northwest, blind with snow and barbed with ice crystals. If I were ten years older, it would have been an honor, being picked for the first long jump in the first starship ever. We got lined up between Earth and Mars, you'll remember, and James pushed the button marked 'Jump'. Two months later your time, one second later by us. There was never anything wrong with the Whale till right at the end and even then I doubt if it was the ship itself that fouled things up. Walking, talking natives on a blue sky planet with 1.1 g gravity and a twenty per cent oxygen atmosphere at fifteen p.s.i. The odds against finding Chang on a six-sun survey on the first star jump ever must be up in the googols. We were able to show them our sun, in their telescopes. "Two, they brew a near-beer that's a lot nearer than the canned stuff we had aboard the Whale . It was more that we all seemed to make silly mistakes when we played them and that's fatal in chess. Of course it's a screwy situation, playing chess with something that grows its own fur coat, has yellow eyes an inch and a half long and long white whiskers. He was called—well, we called him Charley, and he was the ethnologist, ambassador, contact man, or whatever you like to call him, who came back with us.
 The crew would likely have made it home alive
 He would not have been able to correct the navigation error  The crew would have had to find a different way to manipulate chance  The mission would have ended in the same way  The crew would likely have made it home alive