The Airship Docks

The Airship Docks stand apart from the Works, on the open seaward ring where there is room for masts and weather: a long avenue of tall mooring-masts before a rank of vaulted gasbag-halls, with the broad launching-field running down to the sea-wall beyond. This is the island's assembly and harbour quarter of the air. The ribbed frames, the gondolas and the lift-engines arrive here finished from the Engine Works; in the gasbag-halls the riggers marry frame to gondola, cut and stitch and varnish the great envelopes, raise and test the gas, and trim the new ship until she swims true.

From the masts the dirigibles of the rings come and go upon the sky-roads — packet-ships on their schedules, broad slow freighters, and the slim swift cutters of the Concord's couriers — moored nose to mast like horses at a rail, their mooring-crews swarming the lines at every arrival. A harbourmaster of the air keeps the field, the bell, and the order of departures; the launching of a great new ship is a holiday, and half the rings come out on the bridges to watch her lift.

Visitors of good standing may tour the gasbag-halls and the mast-field, and, by arrangement, take passage on a circuit of the rings; the most sought-after berth is with one of the licensed master-captains of the navigators' company, chief among them Captain Maro Teha, who will, if the wind is right and the mood takes him, carry guests up the high sky-road for a view of the whole island at once.