Les Johnson - Going Interstellar

“And if I don’t?”

“All ship’s systems are scheduled to enter hibernation mode. Life support systems will shut down.”

Sitting carefully on the plush couch that faced the fireplace, Ignatiev said, “As I understand mission protocol, life support cannot be shut down as long as a crew member remains active. True?”

“True.” The avatar actually sounded reluctant to admit it, Ignatiev thought. Almost sullen.

“The ship can’t enter hibernation mode as long as I’m on my feet. Also true?”

“Also true,” the image admitted.

He spooned up more borscht. It was cooling quickly. Looking up at the screen on the wall, he said, “Then I will remain awake and active. I will not go into cryosleep.”

“But the ship’s systems will shut down,” the avatar said. “As incoming fuel levels decrease, the power available to run the ship’s systems will decrease correspondingly.”

“And I will die.”

“Yes.”

Ignatiev felt that he had maneuvered the AI system into a clever trap, perhaps a checkmate.

“Tell me again, what is the first priority of the mission protocols?”

Immediately the avatar replied, “To protect the lives of the human crew and cargo.”

“Good,” said Ignatiev. “Good. I appreciate your thoughtfulness.”

The AI system had inhuman perseverance, of course. It hounded Ignatiev wherever he went in the ship. His own quarters, the crew’s lounge—empty and silent now, except for the avatar’s harping—the command center, the passageways, even the toilets. Every screen on the ship displayed the avatar’s coldly logical face.

“Alexander Alexandrovich, you are required to enter cryosleep,” it insisted.

“No, I am not,” he replied as he trudged along the passageway between his quarters and the blister where the main optical telescope was mounted.

“Power levels are decreasing rapidly,” the avatar said for the thousandth time.

Ignatiev did not deign to reply.

I wish there was some way to shut her off, he said to himself. Then, with a pang that struck to his heart, he remembered how he had nodded his agreement to the medical team that had told him Sonya’s condition was hopeless: to keep her alive would accomplish nothing but to continue her suffering.

“Leave me alone!” he shouted.

The avatar fell silent. The screens along the passageway went dark. Power reduction? Ignatiev asked himself. Surely the AI system isn’t following my orders?

It was noticeably chillier inside the telescope’s blister. Ignatiev shivered involuntarily. The bubble of glassteel was a sop to human needs, of course; the telescope itself was mounted outside, on the cermet skin of the ship. The blister housed its control instruments, and a set of swivel chairs for the astronomers to use once they’d been awakened from their long sleep.

Frost was forming on the curving glassteel, Ignatiev saw. Wondering why he’d come here in the first place, he stared out at the heavens. Once the sight of all those stars had filled him with wonder and a desire to understand it all. Now the stars simply seemed like cold, hard points of light, aloof, much too far away for his puny human intellect to comprehend.

The pulsars, he thought. If only I could have found some clue to their mystery, some hint of understanding. But it was not to be.

He stepped back into the passageway, where it was slightly warmer.

The lights were dimmer. No, he realized, every other light panel has been turned off. Conserving electrical power.

The display screens remained dark. The AI system isn’t speaking to me, Ignatiev thought. Good.

But then he wondered, Will the system come back in time? Have I outfoxed myself?

For two days Ignatiev prowled the passageways and compartments of the dying ship. The AI system stayed silent, but he knew it was watching his every move. The display screens might be dark, but the tiny red eyes of the surveillance cameras that covered every square meter of the ship’s interior remained on, watching, waiting.

Well, who’s more stubborn? Ignatiev asked himself. You or that pile of optronic chips?

His strategy had been to place the AI system in a neat little trap. Refuse to enter cryosleep, stay awake and active while the ship’s systems begin to die, and the damned computer program will be forced to act on its first priority: the system could not allow him to die. It will 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.