 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. 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. Then your last words came back and jabbed me: "That's what Mickey used to want."
 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