 Why doesn't Charlie want to go with Laura and Mickey?
For it was June in this year of 1995, and we were the graduating class of the U. S. Academy of Interplanetary Flight. 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. 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. 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. Usually Mickey was the same whether in a furnace-hot engine room or a garden party, smiling, accepting whatever the world offered. They expect us to make a new kind of civilization and a better place out of Earth. And you, Laura, were with him. You and Mickey looked strangely at Charlie, and I realized that old Stardust was not a cadet's notion of the ideal spaceman. 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? Then your last words came back and jabbed me: "That's what Mickey used to want." Charlie was muttering under his breath, smoldering like a bomb about to reach critical mass. They were content with a home that was cool on this warm summer night, with a 'copter and a tri-dimensional video, and a handsome automatic home that needed no servants or housework. Afterward, you and I walked onto the terrace, into the moonlit night, to watch for crimson-tailed continental rockets that occasionally streaked up from White Sands. Charlie doesn't like to be sentimental, at least not on the outside. You kept looking at me until I had to ask: "What are you thinking, Laura?"
 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.