This story was rejected on the grounds that it was too
mature for the magazine's target audience.  Everyone who has read
the story, though, has given me a positive response.  Let me know
what you think.  Thanks.
										 --Jay Buie

											  SHIPWRECKED

	James Benson was ready to leave orbit.  He inserted a data
disk into the ship's NavCom console, and another into his disk
player.  A few moments later, the entertainment computer began to
emit a high-pitched wail.  Almost simultaneously, the NavCom
reported "ERROR!  CANNOT READ NAVIGATION DATA FROM DISK!"
	"Whoops," James said to no one in particular--for there was
no one else in the ship to talk to.  Quickly, he pressed both
systems' "eject" buttons.  In less than a minute the disks were
switched.  Now things seemed to be going smoothly.  The monitor
at the navigation console was asking for his destination while
soothing music poured out of the spacecraft's speakers.
	In short order, the small ship began its long trek toward
Earth.  Since the autopilot was on, there was little more for
James to do at the moment.  He soon found himself singing along
with the entertainment disk:  "What a loooooooooooong, strange
trip its been!"  James had always loved the neoclassics.
	"That line pretty much sums up the last five months," he
thought, "Thank God I'm leaving this dump of an assignment. 
Right now I've got thirty days to myself before I probably have
to head to some other section of the middle of nowhere."
	For the moment, though, life was just fine.  He'd finished
up his apprenticeship tour out on Triton.  With a load of cash in
his pocket and a burgeoning bank account, (After all," the
engineering director had said, "What on Triton are you going to
buy?") James was ready to return to civilization on a planet
where you didn't breathe recirculated air under pressure domes.
	James Gordon Benson, computer engineer, was now heading away
rom the most distant research/colonial outpost yet established. 
Located on one of Neptune's moons, the Carl Sagan
Extraterrestrial Search Station was in constant need of
engineers.  Young engineers pulled six month shifts, five on and
one off, and any of the half dozen government research outposts.
	James was coming off his second such assignment.  "Only four
more to go."  He thought to himself.  Six years ago, he had
accepted a United States Research Station Maintenance Scholarship
to attend the North Carolina Institute of Technology.  One small
clause in the scholarship stated that upon graduation, the new
engineer would have to spend three years manning distant outposts
before going on to private enterprise or graduate school.  At the
time, it seemed like a fun way to travel and see the solar system
before settling down and becoming responsible.
	Fun.  That was not the word he would use to describe it now. 
For five months, James had spent countless hours hunched over a
computer panel, replacing circuit cards, and running errands for
semi-sadistic superiors.  The air was stale.  The only breeze you
felt was if you were standing next to a vent.  There was very
little traveling you could do, seeing as how the entire complex
was only about forty acres.  Sure, once in a while, you might be
able to borrow a rover and scout out the moon's surface a little,
but it was still nothing like what James had anticipated.
	After a quick resupply of food and fuel at the way center of
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Probe Monitoring Station on
Voyager, James was back on his way to Earth.  "Too bad my ship
can't hold enough anti-matter for a straight shot," he mused,
"Having to zigzag through the system for fillups adds too much
time to the trip."  Two more stops, one at the Cassini Ring
Research Station orbiting Saturn, and the other at the Olympus
Mons Vulcanology Center on Mars, and James would be on final
approach to Key West.
	Several Hours later, when he should have been preparing for
is approach to Cassini Station, James found himself responding to
a series of warnings from the ship's computer.  "WARNING: 
PROPULSION SYSTEM FAILURE" flashed incessantly on the craft's
data screen.  "Wonderful.  I knew I should have gotten this thing
inspected before I left Triton!  Well, let's see where I'm
heading."  James then  punched up the course extrapolation
program.  The readout caused him even further despair.  In just
under two hours, James and his P-5100 Mustang spacecraft would be
little more than a pile of rubble in a crater on Saturn's moon
Titan.
	As an engineer, James thought he might be able to fix the
problem.  Upon inspecting the circuitry, however, his
professional assessment was "Eyuch!"  The card controlling the
thrust vectoring system had been completely fried.  Close
inspection showed that enough dust had accumulated on the card to
produce a severe short circuit.  James had long intended to get
the dust filter fixed, but had never gotten around to it.  "Well,
Mom always said that procrastination would be the death of me.  I
guess she was right."
	With nothing to do but wait, James decided to try and use
the maneuvering wings to glide down once he entered Titan's
atmosphere.  He called up information on the moon from the
computer's data disks.  Again, the readout on the screen did not
thrill him.  Titan's atmosphere would cause the ship's outer hull
to overheat very badly.  "I'll be lucky to get down there without
burning up,"  James thought to himself.
	As the Mustang began to slip into the upper reaches of the
atmosphere, James felt himself thrown forward.  The straps on his
safety harness strained to hold him back against the sharp
deceleration.  Titan's atmosphere is about twice as thick as
Earth's, and this made the Mustang's control surfaces hyper-
reactive.  In two of James's early attempts to slow the ship
down, he found himself in the middle of a seven-plus gee turn
that nearly caused him to black out.  He wasn't worried about the
stress of the turns damaging the ship.  Instead, the problem was
with him.  The force of the turn pulled the blood from his head,
making a blackout a likely possibility.  He desperately fought to
execute several controlled S-turns, having now figured out that
it took a very light, subtle touch on the stick.  Overheating
warnings flashed wildly on the console, but James was only numbly
aware of them.  Instead, he was concentrating on the velocity
indicator, intent on getting the ship's speed as low as possible
before he hit the rocky surface of Titan.
	From this altitude, Titan's ground was still shrouded by
methane clouds, but the scanning radar provided a clear false
color image on James's video screen.  Using the image, James was
trying desperately to find a smooth place to land.
	Suddenly, another warning rang through the ship, this one
higher pitched and more dangerous-sounding.  This ship's outside
had heated up to the point that it was actually beginning to melt
in places.  Immediately, James thought, "Forget about a place to
land.  Time to bail out."  With that, he left the controls and
went back to don his emergency lifesuit.
	Required equipment on any spacecraft, a lifesuit was
designed as an emergency escape system.  The lifesuit carried
with it enough oxygen, nutrient capsules, and hallucinogens for
forty-five days.  The hallucinogens were for anybody who had the
misfortune to be stuck in a lifesuit for forty-five days.  More
importantly, the suit contained an emergency re-entry system. 
While this system was infamous as "the absolute craziest escape
system ever designed,"  it could get you down if everything else
failed.
	Fifteen minutes later, James was ready.  His heart was
pounding as much from fear as stress and exhaustion.  As he
looked out the open hatch and saw the clouds streaking past,
James closed his eyes and jumped.
	With his eyes still shut tightly, James heard his Mustang
continue screaming though the sky.  Summoning up all his nerve,
he cracked his eyes open.  He was just in time to see his former
ship break up and finally explode as the magnetic bottle
containing the anti-matter collapsed.
	With scarcely a few seconds to reflect on his bail-out, he
pulled the rip cord.  James felt the vibrations shudder through
his suit as a streamer trailed out behind him.  The nomex fabric
whipping through Titan's atmosphere served as a break and slowed
James down to the point that he would not burn up like his ship
had.  Now instead of hurtling through the clouds, he was falling
toward the ground.
	Now that he was out of relative danger, James moved to phase
three.  Another tug on the rip cord caused the streamer to
disengage and a parachute to deploy.  The force of the parachute
opening caused James to be jerked forward to the point that he
banged his nose hard on the front faceplate of his lifesuit.  As
he descended, James grumbled to himself, "All things considered,
I think I'd rather have taken my chances with the ship.
	The last few kilometers of the drop were uneventful, save
being rocked like a pendulum by the winds.  It took all of
James's willpower to keep from throwing up, for he knew that his
vomit would be stuck with him in the lifesuit.  Finally, it was
time to drop and roll--like he had seen in pilot training videos.
	After deciding that he hurt too much to be dead, James
quickly looked himself over, only to find out that he was in even
worse shape than before.  The antenna that had been on the suit's
right shoulder was now practically gone.  Only a few centimeters
were left to carry his distress signal to the rest of the Solar
System.
	James shouted at the top of his lungs in rage.  "Stupid
deskbound engineers!" he cried, "They should have designed a
retractable antenna!  Now I've got to pay for their flaw with my
life!"  After all of his efforts to stay alive, he was foiled by
a single half meter piece of metal.  Despondent and depressed,
James took a dose of the hallucinogens.
	After a few days of doing nothing but getting stoned, James
lapsed into a long, long sleep.  When he awoke, he felt better,
refreshed.  "Why am I just sitting around here?" he asked
himself.  "If I got myself this far, there must be something else
I can do."  After several moments of deep thought, an idea
struck.  "Maybe if I can get to one of the old mines, I can do
something there.  But where are they?"
	In it's heyday, nearly fifty years ago, there had been
almost a hundred different mines on Titan.  However, a
combination of miner strikes, and richer sources elsewhere had
spelled doom for the Titanian mining colonies.  Long abandoned,
all that was left were ghost towns.  The trick, James decided,
was to find one of these encampments.  Choosing a direction
pretty much at random, James started walking.
	Days lost their meaning.  James spent nearly all of his time
walking, scanning the horizon for telltale signs of a structure. 
He no longer measured time in hours or minutes, but by how much
oxygen he had left.  Finally, with his supply about three-fourths
depleted, James found his first encouraging signs along the banks
of the Perseus River, a methane stream on the moon.  "These
tracks belong to some sort of large vehicle.  I think I've
finally hit paydirt!  Let's follow them and see where they go." 
(James had always talked to himself a little bit, now he relied
on it to keep from going mad.)
	Several kilometers later, James was at the StarMiner
Incorporated Nickel Mine.  Jubilant, he searched all of the
buildings.  His elation, unfortunately, was short lived.  All the
electronic equipment had either been taken when the miners left,
or stolen by looters.  The only things were the structures and
the electromagnetic catapult.  Slowly, a crazy, outlandish idea
began to form in James's mind.
	The catapult was a fifteen hundred meter long rail gun.  It
was used to shoot reinforced, heat-tempered containers of
unrefined ore into orbit around Titan, where they were picked up
by freighters for return to Earth.  The power source for the
catapult was an ancient, obsolete fission generator, obviously
more trouble than it was worth for any looters.  Payloads were
placed at the beginning of the gun.  There, a force field
accelerated the load until by the end of the gun, escape velocity
was reached.  The payload then shot out of the catapult, bound
for orbit.  James had decided to ride that force field off the
moon.
	He was well aware that unless he did something drastic, he
would not survive the trip into orbit.  The friction of moving
through vapors of hydrogen cyanide and methane at thousands of
kilometers per hour would quickly reduce him to a charred piece
of smoking carbon.  Fortunately, James still had phase one of his
emergency re-entry system.  James had not needed to implement it
when he bailed out of his Mustang, for he had already been
relatively low in the moon's atmosphere.  He had saved it simply
because it would have been too much trouble to get rid of.
	To put it simply, phase one was an inflatable heat shield. 
Deflated, the shield was stored in a compartment on the front of
the lifesuit.  With the push of a button, however, it would be
inflated with a tough, quick-drying, foamy substance in order to
give it rigid durability.  This produced a half-sphere that
enveloped its user, protecting them from the tremendous heat
generated by the early stages of re-entry.  Now, however, James
was planning to use it in reverse; to shield him from friction
generated by travelling toward orbit.
	"These controls are pretty simple.  I should be able to add
a delay to the activation switch without too much trouble."  With
that, James started altering the insides of the device.  A few
hours later, the new layout was completed.  It had taken him far
longer than he originally expected because he had to work while
wearing the lifesuit's thick gloves.  "So far, so good.  Now how
much of a delay did I create?"  James pressed the "Launch"
button.  Instead of immediately producing the requisite force
field, the readouts indicated a gradual buildup of voltage. 
Several seconds later, the field was created and traveled down
the catapult.  Had there been a payload, it would be well on its
way into orbit now.
	"Looks like it's long enough.  Now give it a few minutes to
recharge, and I'll be on my way."  James mused, "Some choices I
have.  If I stay on Titan, I'm a dead man for sure.  IF I get on
the rail gun, and IF the force of the thing doesn't kill me, and
IF the friction with the atmosphere doesn't burn me up, and IF
somebody receives my distress signal, and IF they get to me in
time, MAYBE I'll live.  Lovely.  Well, its better than no chance
at all."
	Once the power cells had recharged, James again pressed the
"Launch" button.  Immediately, he made his way over to the
catapult and struggled up onto it.  The first thing he did was
press a button on his chest inflating the heat shield.  In less
than a second, the shield completely engulfed his front half,
leaving him blind.  The waiting seemed interminable.  "This is
NOT going to be fun," he thought to himself.  Then, without any
warning at all, it happened.
	Going from standing still to escape velocity in fifteen
hundred meters produces similar stress as hitting a brick wall at
sixty k.p.h.  The shockwave coursed through James's body, racking
him with pain.  James had to fight to stay conscious.  Next thing
he knew, he was shooting through methane clouds.  Next stop: 
orbit.
	"Whew, its getting warm," he said to himself.  Even the
suit's environmental adjusters couldn't compensate for all of the
heat produced by the atmosphere.  Now, sweltering temperatures
were making it even harder not to pass out.
	Less than two minutes later, James Benson was in orbit
around Titan.  "The hard part's over," he said jubilantly, as he
discarded the now scorched shield.  "Now let's see how much
longer my oxygen will--uh oh!"  The oxygen level indicator was
falling at a rapid pace.  The trip had been too much on the suit.
Even with his protection, the heat had burned a small hole in it.
Now, lifegiving oxygen was seeping out into the vacuum of space.
	Half an hour.  The oxygen tanks were now empty.  James was
feeling lightheaded and began to hallucinate.  He had just taken
his last dose of hallucinogens a few minutes earlier, and now a
lack of oxygen seemed to make the hallucinations more intense. 
The warm, subtropical waters of Florida Bay seemed to flow around
him.  Palm trees were waving in the breeze.  Sea gulls were
flying by, leaving tracers as they went.  As he drifted there,
James saw a dolphin swim up to him and say, "Jolly Mon, hello. 
I've always loved your music.  Climb on board, don't let go."
	James's emotions were running wild as he thought, "Key West. 
I made it!"  Somewhere in the logical recesses of his mind, he
also thought, "Yeah, I know.  It's just a vision, but it sure
beats feeling the pain of suffocation."

	"Excuse me, sir, can you hear me?"  A sweet, lilting voice
penetrated the blackness.  James slowly managed to open his eyes. 
Gradually, they began to focus on a pretty young lady standing
over him.  Could he be dead?  And she an angel?  "Wha, what? 
Where?" he managed to utter, still quite dazed.
	"You're in the sickbay at Cassini Station, Mr. Benson. 
Quite lucky to be here, I might add," replied the nurse, smiling
at him.
	"Really?  How, how did I get here?" James asked her, still
trying to comprehend the situation.
	"Two days ago, you were picked up by a passing cargo ship
and brought here.  For a while, it was touch and go.  We weren't
sure you would survive.  Fortunately, we managed to bring you
back," she answered, still smiling at him.  "If you feel up to
it, Mr. Benson, we have a few questions to ask you."
	What's this "we" stuff, James thought.  He looked around the
room.  The only other occupant was a burly security guard. 
What's he in here for?  "Uh, okay.  Yeah, ask away?" he heard
himself saying.
	The guard broke in.  "For starters, Mr. Benson," he asked,
"why were you out around Titan when you are supposed to be at the
Heliopole Solar Power Station?"
	"Uh, well, is that where I was supposed to be?"  James
asked.  He knew it wasn't much of an answer, but it was all he
could do for the moment.
	"Yeah," the guard continued,"  When you were AWOL at the
Power Station, they put out an All Points Bulletin for you. 
We've been on the lookout for you for a week now."
	"Also," the nurse interrupted, "you life suit was in very
terrible shape when they found you.  What happened to you out
there?"
	James cracked a smile, "Sit down, ya'll.  I have an amazing
tale to tell you."