 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. When I say they, I mean a ten-man team of them. "Two, they brew a near-beer that's a lot nearer than the canned stuff we had aboard the Whale . People who talk English, drink beer, like jokes and beat me at chess or table-tennis are people for my money, even if they look like tigers in trousers. 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. Charley laughed fit to bust, everyone laughed, I even laughed myself though doing it hurt me more than the tumble had. Yes, life and soul of the party, old Charley ... "My last sight of the Minnow was a cabin full of dead and dying men, the sweetish stink of burned flesh and the choking reek of scorching insulation, the boat jolting and shuddering and beginning to break up, and in the middle of the flames, still unhurt, was Charley. "My God, it's dark out here. Same as a fifty thousand mile fall, I suppose; same as escape; twenty-four thousand miles an hour. Come to think of it, I must be deep in air now.
 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