Free Going Interstellar by Jack McDevitt, Les Johnson

change the ship’s course, take us out of this bubble of low density and follow my guidance through the clouds of abundant fuel. Check and mate.
    That was Ignatiev’s strategy. He hadn’t counted on the AI system developing a strategy of its own.
    It’s waiting for me to collapse, he realized. Waiting until I get so cold and hungry that I can’t stay conscious. Then it will send some maintenance robots to pick me up and bring me to the lab for a brain scan. The medical robots will sedate me and then they’ll pack me nice and neat into the cryosleep capsule they’ve got waiting for me. Check and mate.
    He knew he was right. Every time he dozed off he was awakened by the soft buzzing of a pair of maintenance robots, stubby little fireplug shapes of gleaming metal with strong flexible arms folded patiently, waiting for the command to take him in their grip and bring him to the brain scan lab.
    Ignatiev slept in snatches, always jerking awake as the robots neared him. “I’m not dead yet!” he’d shout.
    The AI system did not reply.
    He lost track of the days. To keep his mind active he returned to his old study of the pulsars, reviewing research reports he had written half a century earlier. Not much worth reading, he decided.
    In frustration he left his quarters and prowled along a passageway, thumping his arms against his torso to keep warm., He quoted a scrap of poetry he remembered from long, long ago:
     
“Alone, alone, all, all alone,
“Alone on a wide wide sea!”
    It was from an old poem, a very long one, about a sailor in the old days of wind-powered ships on the broad tossing oceans of Earth.
    The damned AI system is just as stubborn as I am! he realized as he returned to his quarters. And it’s certainly got more patience than I do.
    Maybe I’m going mad, he thought as he pulled on a heavy workout shirt over his regular coveralls. He called to the computer on his littered desk for the room’s temperature: ten point eight degrees Celsius. No wonder I’m shivering, he said to himself.
    He tried jogging along the main passageway, but his legs ached too much for it. He slowed to a walk and realized that the AI system was going to win this battle of wills.
    I’ll collapse sooner or later and then the damned robots will bundle me off.
    And, despite the AI system’s best intention, we’ll all die.
    For several long moments he stood in the empty passageway, puffing from exertion and cold. The passageway was dark, almost all of the ceiling light panels were off now. The damned AI system will shut them all down sooner or later, Ignatiev realized, and I’ll bump along here in total darkness. Maybe it’s waiting for me to brain myself by walking into a wall, knock myself unconscious.
    That was when he realized what he had to do. It was either inspiration or desperation: perhaps a bit of both.
    Do I have the guts to do it? Ignatiev asked himself. Will this gambit force the AI system to concede?
    He rather doubted it. As far as that collection of chips is concerned, he thought, I’m nothing but a nuisance. The sooner it’s rid of me the better matters will stand—for the ship. For the human cargo, maybe not so good.
    Slowly, deliberately, he trudged down the passageway, half expecting to see his breath frosting in the chilly air. It’s not that cold, he told himself. Not yet.
    Despite the low lighting level, the sign designating the airlock hatch was still illuminated, its red symbol glowing in the gloom.
    The airlocks were under the AI system’s control, of course, but there was a manual override for each of them, installed by the ship’s designers as a last desperate precaution against total failure of the ship’s digital systems.
    Sucking in a deep cold breath, Ignatiev called for the inner hatch to open, then stepped through and entered the airlock. It was spacious enough to accommodate a half dozen people: a circular chamber of bare metal, gleaming slightly in the dim lighting. A womb , Ignatiev