While the Captain and Lena go flying, the rest of us go our separate ways. Alliea goes sightseeing, exploring the local temples and artworks. Brandon hits the libraries. Jamie goes to a playground and makes out like a ten-year-old for an afternoon. Kalen barters in the markets.
And I spend the day at the leisure centre. As well as a gym, and a pool, they have a competition running track. Athletes in training limber up and stretch. A pole vaulter leaps high up in the air and skims the bar. Two runners match paces as they cruise at an effortless sprint.
I take the field. My brawny hairy Loper body feels vile to me as I see the sleek and muscular professional athletes around me, but no one can deny that I am a magnificent runner. So I run, and run, and run. Not quite as fast as the competition-winning athletes, who can move like mercury exploding. But when they are flagging and tiring, I am still going strong. I vary my pace; from run to bound. I leap huge leaps along the track. I roll a forward somersault, leap ten metres in the air, backflip, forward flip, then continue running.
I do this for eighteen hours. And slowly, hour by hour, I feel the stiffness leave my joints. I was built for this, bioengineered to run for twelve hours a day without any need for food and drink. My home planet of Pohl was an airless wilderness, but we man-beasts were modified so we could inhabit almost any of its terrains. We had cities in the valleys, we built temples in the mountains. We were a low-culture, high-technology mining planet, but as far as we Lopers were concerned, we were the lords of all we surveyed.
I miss those days. I had lovers in plenty, I savoured the cold crisp airless Pohlian nights, the blistering heat of the summers, the icy cold of our winters. I worked all day, and slept all night. We weren’t trained to read, or watch tv or dv. We had no interests beyond being alive. Some called us slaves, but no slave has ever been so free.
I run. I run. I run. I run. I run. I run.
I runrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrun!
And when I run I forget all my doubts and regrets. All my hesitations and pauses. All my uncertainties. All my fears. I run, I am the run, the run is me.
I am complete.