For a while, you just stare at the plasmids. They can do anything. They can change your gender, let you screw one of the male crew members, or they can change your species, make you more compatible for one of the females on the ship. Then again, you're not sure you want to become whatever the fuck Sycrax is, and you'd need to hermetically seal a room and flush it of oxygen if you wanted to mate with Tarla, which would require hours of tinkering with the life support, and then you'd probably wind up asphyxiating everybody by accident. Cordion is a cutey, but even as a member of her species there's no guarantee she'll sleep with you.
You resign yourself to waiting until planetfall. You're heading for the spaceport of Underhaven on the planet of Sirene VI, on the spinward frontier of human territory, a lawless, seedy place where you'll be able to catch up on months of enforced space-celibacy. The place is such a delightfully filthy hive of filth and filthery, it's said you can't throw a rock without hitting two whores and a pimp.
The populace is easy on the eyes too - most of the whores have undergone some form of cheap, kinky augmentation, and most of the male population (pimps, thieves, and murderers to a man) have done the same. Every now and again, perhaps once or twice a year, an Inner System's fleet passes through the system on patrol, rounding up every criminal and fugitive they can find and shipping them back to the Core Worlds for trial. The local criminal fraternity quickly learned that using cosmetic augs to camouflage themselves among the female sex workers would generally allow them to pass under the eyes of the law, and so the planet population roughly breaks down to 10% unaugmented men, 60% women, and 30% gender-reassigned men.
The only problem is telling the difference between the two. The Underhaven's chop shops are so practiced, that usually you can't tell until you find what they're packing beneath their skirts. Grab the wrong ass, and a person might suddenly find themselves on the wrong end of a crime kingpin's pistol.
You check your watch. You won't make planetfall for another eleven hours. Returning to your bunk, you fire up the entertainment implant in your brain and run a few simulated memories to pass the time.
Before you know it, you're being rattled awake by the upper atmosphere of Sirene VI. The ship is heating up fast, the icicle in the corner sweating as the bulkhead grows warm. You hold on and ride out the turbulence.
"Coming in to Underhaven dock in thirty seconds," Mike's voice comes over the intercom. The ship brakes suddenly as magnetic grapplers grip it, guiding it towards one of the landing bays. "Docking clamps in ...3...2...1..." Your ship comes to a prompt, hard halt, held fast in the grip of the heavy clamps. You've made it. Climbing from your bunk, you walk out into the hangar bay, smelling the sweet, moist air of the Underhaven as the hangar doors slide open.
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