They wended their way back to the Factory Complex, to the design and fabrication center where Yori had worked, attracting no notice from the apathetic programs they passed in the streets. Their first need would be transportation to get them to the MCP as quickly as possible, and Sark and the MCP controlled all conventional means of travel. But Yori had come up with a daring alternative.
And so they sprinted through Hangar 19. Above them, suspended in her berthing field, completed, was the Solar Sailer. She was an astoundingly beautiful vessel, speaking of freedom and speed even though stationary. Her forebody was shaped like an artillery shell, with an aperture for the ejection of the Transmission Beam that drove her, situated in her prow. From the waist of the forebody radiated eight sparlike masts securing the great sails that fanned out to either side like immense metallic wings. Three long, thin antennae were set around her bow aperture to maintain beam connection and emission.
A single slender catwalk ran aft, the forebody’s only connection to the midships. Midships was the bridge, a sort of rounded, bi-level quarterdeck. The Sailer’s afterbody, a bulky, heavily shielded segment, served two functions, mounting the reception aperture through which the transmission beam entered the craft, and securing the vessel’s rigging. Four long lines connected it to the deployed sails, its only connection to the rest of the ship. The Sailer suggested a dragonfly, delicate in appearance, perhaps 250 feet in length, afterbody included.
“This videogame ship—it’s very fast,” Yori told him. Tron considered the risks against the advantages. Riding transmission beams through the skies of the System would mean being sighted and pursued, and make them vulnerable to ground weapons as well, but they could take a roundabout course to minimize those dangers, and the craft’s speed would help. More, she was the quickest means of getting to the MCP. That decided him.
They went to the lift-platform. It levitated them into the air, carrying them upward and passing into the center of the midships bridge, becoming part of the vessel’s deck as it came to rest. They ran to the control console of the rounded bridge, and Yori bent over it worriedly, calling to mind all that she knew from her work in the Factory Domain, and finding it odd to draw on those torpid labor shifts.
Checking a map of the System, she examined the various transmission beams that crisscrossed its skies, the transfer points and origin fixes.
“It can take us across the Game Sea,” she concluded, “out of this Domain, back to the Central Computer.” Tron judged that that would be all he would need. Once in the Central Computer, he would follow Alan-One’s instructions and use his disk.
The reverberations of footsteps on the catwalk brought him around in alarm. A guard was charging at them.
Tron pulled Yori back out of the way just as the guard leaped up the free-standing steps to the bridge. He kicked the guard squarely in the middle; the program fell back just as a dozen more swarmed up onto the Sailer.
Tron moved forward a little to confront them, waiting, disk held ready, knowing that every cast had to count. He crouched, threw. The weapon sliced air and smashed into the massed guards, halting their advance and downing two of their number, whose auras gave way to that of the disk. Then the whirling plate of light was back in his hand again. Tron saw, from the corner of his eye, more guards running across the hangar floor toward the Sailer.
He cast again and again as the guards bore down on him, driven by their fear of Sark and the MCP to face this defense. Many of them fell; more than enough were left. Knowing that he must keep them from Yori, so that she could pilot them to safety, he threw himself headlong at the advancing guards, striking out at them with hands and feet, throwing them overboard, driving some back against the others, hoping that no reinforcements would come over the rail behind him.
Tron called into play all the battle skills, strength, and speed he’d developed as a Warrior, and the power given him by Alan-One, battling as if possessed. Sark had come just short of killing him on the Game Grid but, in so doing, had honed him into the perfect fighting machine.
A guard sprang to swing a staff at him. Behind the guard, an Elite was crowding close, though he didn’t seem to be ready for attack. Tron caught the Memory Guard’s staff at its insulated points and yanked with all his might. The guard flipped backward and sideways, taking the disorganized Elite with him, as Tron had intended.
And then, incredibly, the catwalk was clear. He looked around; Yori was patting and stroking calmly at the ship’s controls, safe. Searching for any other antagonists, Tron spotted a final guard standing atop the Sailer’s forebody. They stared at one another, the guard plainly distressed by what he’d seen but knowing what it would mean to fail Sark.
Tron took a step toward him, and another, like some great, stalking cat. The guard gulped, looked down over the side, then glanced back to Tron. Deciding that he had a better chance of breaking or surviving a fall than he had against the User Champion, the guard jumped from the Sailer’s forebody, aiming for a resolution emitter.
The Sailer lurched. Tron was thrown backward to fall sprawling. He looked aft to where Yori’s finger traced the circuit paths on the controls, energy flowing from her fingertip. “We’re off!” ghe called triumphantly.
A transmission beam passed into the receiver aperture in the ship’s stern to reappear as a projection from her bow, emerging from the nozzle there like some mighty searchlight, driving the Sailer on her way. Her sails curved, full and taut to either side. The craft moved, lifting slowly at first, Yori easing them out of the gargantuan hangar, then accelerating sharply once in the clear, and gaining altitude. In seconds, she’d left the Factory Complex behind. Tron spied Sark’s Carrier off in the distance, but knew that the Sailer was out of range of the warship’s weapons, and that even the Carrier had no hope of overtaking her.
On the Carrier, Sark, immobilized in his podium, saw hanging before him the projected image of the MCP. The Command Program writhed in agony as the MCP applied pain to him through the power outlets in the podium. Its voice was chilling, implacable, and hateful, yet honeyed. “I hope you’ve enjoyed being a Command Program, Sark,” it told him with slow menace. “I wonder how you’ll like working in a pocket calculator.”
Gasping, battered back and forth in torment, Sark managed, “We did take care of that User you sent us—”
“Yes! And now you’ve got two renegade programs running all over the System in a stolen simulation.”
Another wave of pain rose through him as Sark was shaken again. “We’ll get them!” he promised, barely able to breathe. “It’s only a matter of time!” He wouldn’t permit himself to think of what would happen if he didn’t recapture the two; this was only a taste of the punishment the MCP was capable of meting out. He, who was the favorite, Champion of the MCP, was also in danger of being its most pitiable victim.
“I don’t have time, Sark,” the venomous voice told him. “And neither do you. End of line.”
Nevertheless, the Carrier swung onto a pursuit course, after the Sailer. And even in his anguish, Sark knew a twinge of victory; this was a tacit admission that, after all, if he couldn’t apprehend the fugitives, no one could. The Carrier shone with brighter resolution, its power increased by the MCP.
13
OVERCOMING HIS SURPRISE at the Solar Sailer’s acceleration, Tron hauled himself to his feet. He started back to where Yori manipulated the vessel’s controls on the bridge, treading the catwalk lightly, watching the landscape slide by below at tremendous speed. Then something caught his eye and he paused, poising for battle, ready to bring forth his disk.