Earth-orbit gateway station — a spun, tiered wheel on a spine

Highreach

A spinning wheel over the turning Earth, tiered by function, where a ship's crew climb out of the noise into the quiet and find that the quiet is where the decisions are. The dock levels give way to embassy decks, and the embassy decks give way to the Survey's floor, which flies no flags at all; three levels up the Survey ring is the only carpet on the station.

Operator: The Open Reach Survey's home berth; Earth's embassy row and chancery on the rings above the docks
Series: Wide Sky
Drawn as: Drawn as dressed for the honours, Day 110 of the Dawnward's first voyage, ~2312 (Wide Sky, chapter 22; ch26). Redrawn 2026-09-21 to the topology the books walk: seven rings — yard, freight, visitor, dock levels, embassy decks, Survey, chancery — and no separate Directorate ring, because the directorate is three levels up the Survey ring (Wide Sky, chapter 23). The SITE sheet carries the whole trilogy (~2312–2317) as dated revision lines, later texture marked spoiler; the PRINT lane is Day 110 only (see printConfiguration).

Sheet 1 Ring plan — looking down, throat side to the top 7 rings · 25 sealable sectors

1 The Dawnward's berth under the glass Dock levels — the main concourse published Wide Sky, chapter 1; ch21:125, ch21:155; The Widened Road, chapter 26
“Highreach hung the ship against the whole bright face of Earth” (Wide Sky, chapter 1). The dressed berth of the homecoming (ch21:155) and “the cradle where the protocol office had once rigged a dais” (The Widened Road, chapter 26). The print draws her here, opened up, Day 110.
2 The transit — forty metres from the ramp foot Dock levels — the main concourse published Wide Sky, chapter 2–43, ch02:53
“Sethi was waiting at the foot of the ramp … ‘I'll walk you to the transit,’ Sethi said. ‘It's forty metres.’ ‘Then I'll walk slowly.’” (Wide Sky, chapter 2–45). The one measured distance on the station: 40 m at r 370 m is 6.2° of arc from LM-BERTH, and the plan is drawn to it.
3 The customs post Dock levels — the main concourse published Wide Sky, chapter 1
“a customs post where a Nhál in survey grey was having a slow, patient argument with a manifest officer”.
4 The noodle stall at the gantry head Dock levels — the main concourse published Wide Sky, chapter 1; ch02:47; ch21:155; ch22:39; ch23:143; ch26:29; The Widened Road, chapter 26, ch26:93
“the noodle stall queued six deep” (Wide Sky, chapter 2); “Steam stood over the noodle stall, the shift-change queue backed up past the counter” (ch21:155); “Even the noodle stall had its shutter down, and its cook stood out front at the rail in a clean apron, keeping a place beside him for somebody still coming” (ch26:29); “The cook stood out at the counter's end with the ladle hooked over the rail beside him, face up” (The Widened Road, chapter 26). The most-loved fixture on the station.
5 Assessments Dock levels — the main concourse published Wide Sky, chapter 22, ch22:39
One tier up, with “a window with the Dawnward in it” (Wide Sky, chapter 22) and a door onto the concourse — “The concourse outside Assessments was loud with the ordinary wealth of a place that had never once been told no” (ch22:39).
6 The yard-side lift down to the cradles Dock levels — the main concourse published Wide Sky, chapter 26; The Closing Sky, chapter 5
“Locke marked him going up the yard side in the borrowed jacket, collar already open, and lost him at the lift that went down to the cradles” (Wide Sky, chapter 26). The yard-arm climbs from the route floor beside it (The Closing Sky, chapter 5).
7 The officers' lift and the lift queue Dock levels — the main concourse published The Widened Road, chapter 1–11
“The grey bought him a metre at the lift queue. The face took the metre back.” (The Widened Road, chapter 1); “At the officers' lift a steward started to redirect him to the freight side, got one syllable out, found the coat, and rebuilt the sentence. ‘Morning, sir.’” (ch01:7).
8 The deep-watch allocation desk on the mezzanine Dock levels — the main concourse published The Closing Sky, chapter 1, ch01:11, ch01:71; ch02:3, ch02:37
“It sat on the mezzanine over the main route floor at Highreach, third tier up, where the deck window ran from the plating to the overhead and gave onto the whole turning abundance the station hung inside – Earth coming round underneath with its nightside cities strung in long chains of light” (The Closing Sky, chapter 1). ⚠ ~2317, under the emergency directive; on the site sheet, not on the print.
9 The south stair and the feeds panel Dock levels — the main concourse published Wide Sky, chapter 26; The Widened Road, chapter 26
“Not one pointed at the south stair, where Sethi sat on the third step with his jacket open and both hands going, deep in some story that required them, while the Ferren children corrected his grammar” (Wide Sky, chapter 26); “A feeds panel by the south stair ran four channels at once” (The Widened Road, chapter 26).
10 The south gallery — the long rail Dock levels — the main concourse published Wide Sky, chapter 26
“On the south gallery, out of the crush, the Ferren had the long rail — elders in their stiff travelling best, the children down front, station light on wide dark eyes built for a redder light than this.” v1 had this on the chancery ring; it is the concourse.
11 The dais against the ledger wall (Day 110 only) Dock levels — the main concourse published Wide Sky, chapter 24, ch24:113; ch25:23; ch26:29, ch26:35, ch26:47
“Full honours, the whole crew on the high dais, Silva's name first” (Wide Sky, chapter 24); “dais sections were coming off a flatbed loader while a sound check tapped through the public address” (ch24:113); “a protocol crew was fixing seat numbers to the dais in rows” (ch25:23); “The protocol office had rigged the dais against the ledger wall, so that whoever stood on it stood under the full height of the map” (ch26:29). Dressing for the print date; not a fixture.
12 The public ledger wall — the transit heads Dock levels — the main concourse published Wide Sky, chapter 1; ch22:65; ch23:131; ch24:115; ch26:29, ch26:61, ch26:123; The Widened Road, chapter 26; The Closing Sky, chapter 23; ch24:57
“a wall-sized public ledger where a knot of people stood watching the routes resolve, and a child kept tugging a father's sleeve to show him one that had just gone gold” (Wide Sky, chapter 1). “At the public ledger wall by the transit heads, the Sable routes were filling in. Gold, mark by proven mark — every one a licensed transit, a bonded route … a docker with a drink in his hand cheered one home like a race result” (ch23:131). Its security property is authorship, never secrecy — “unforgeable, authenticated, open to anyone alive who cared to read them” (ch24:115) — which is why it can be a wall in a hall. The ‘transit heads’ are the route-heads lit along its edge (The Closing Sky, chapter 23), not a station.
13 The directorate's lift Dock levels — the main concourse published The Widened Road, chapter 26, ch26:91; Wide Sky, chapter 23
Renwick “walked Vale to the lift himself, past his own office and its four desks, and shook her hand at the doors” (The Widened Road, chapter 26); it lands beyond the ledger wall, where Locke's walk up goes “past the ledger wall … and along the quiet upper passage” (Wide Sky, chapter 23).
14 The boat gate — two minutes from the lift Dock levels — the main concourse derived The Widened Road, chapter 26, ch26:91, ch26:93; Wide Sky, chapter 25
“The gate was two minutes from the lift. Vale took the long way, down the concourse, under the wall.” (The Widened Road, chapter 26). Working: two minutes at a walking 1.3 m/s ≈ 150 m; at r 370 m that is 23° of arc from LM-DIRLIFT, drawn so. “Commuters off the first ring boat came up the stair” (ch26:93): the gate is down a stair off the concourse. “The first boat went down at six” (ch26:73); the 0600 shuttle (Wide Sky, chapter 25).
15 The vault window Dock levels — the main concourse fixed spec ruling 2026-09-21 on Wide Sky, chapter 23
“captains didn't usually stand in line at the vault window” (Wide Sky, chapter 23). Below the concourse; the drawing's arc.
16 The tea cart Dock levels — the main concourse published The Closing Sky, chapter 23
“A tea cart did hard trade at the shift change.” ~2317; on the site sheet as a revision, not on the print.
17 The rail above the freight locks Freight ring published The Widened Road, chapter 1
Where Rook eats standing, “out of habit”, and watches a reach hauler two berths down work cargo.
18 The working berth, freight side Freight ring published The Widened Road, chapter 26
The ~2314 homecoming berth — “Line-handlers met the lines. A cargo master came up the gantry with a slate and asked, of the whole returning expedition, only whether the forward racks were coming off tonight.” Not on the print.
19 The long visitor berths Visitor ring published Wide Sky, chapter 24
Seen from Renwick's office, below and outboard.
20 The cargo hall on the spinward arc — the paper sky Visitor ring published Wide Sky, chapter 23, ch23:133; ch24:67
“Along one bulkhead, low, at the height of a bunk, a child had taped up a sky — sheet after sheet of paper, stars laid out in careful yellow, and at the centre of it, big as a plate, a sun drawn the colour suns are supposed to be.” (Wide Sky, chapter 23). “The lights inside were down to embers, and through the hatch glass someone was singing low, one of the Ferren's slow rounds” (ch23:133). On the visitor ring by Renwick's own word (ch24:67).
21 The yard gate and the flatbed Yard rings — the third ring published The Widened Road, chapter 1; Wide Sky, chapter 26
“The yard gate knew him; the foreman waved the chit away” (The Widened Road, chapter 1). On Day 110, “On a flatbed by the gate the old receiver mast lay in its slings, craned out whole the day before, tagged for the yard stores; the replacement stood on blocks beside it, wrapped” (Wide Sky, chapter 26).
22 The number-two crane Yard rings — the third ring published Wide Sky, chapter 26
“High on the number-two crane somebody had run up a single length of survey blue. It was the yard's own, nothing protocol had sent; the riggers had flown it for the engineer.” Flying on the print.
23 The yard-arm from the route floor Yard rings — the third ring published The Closing Sky, chapter 5, ch05:101
“walking up the yard-arm from the route floor with a duffel on her shoulder” (The Closing Sky, chapter 5); at cast-off “the arm swinging away” (ch05:101). A cradle gantry aligned on the concourse's yard side (LM-YARDLIFT, arc 92 on R4).
24 The yard dorm Yard rings — the third ring published The Widened Road, chapter 1
Where Rook slept for eighteen months between Wide Sky and The Widened Road — “more door than the yard dorm had ever allowed him”.
25 Embassy doors — flags and guards standing easy Embassy decks published Wide Sky, chapter 2
“flags Locke half knew, station guards standing easy outside doors that had never been near a loader”.
26 The operations gallery Survey ring — the Survey's floor, four levels published The Closing Sky, chapter 2
The Survey's base level, L3, level with the concourse mezzanine. Under corridor-defence in ~2317 (“Merrick's floor”).
27 The metrology loft — the bench line Survey ring — the Survey's floor, four levels published Wide Sky, chapter 25
Where the Survey's reference plates are kept and returned; two junior cartographers stand up for no administrative reason.
28 The Hollis room Survey ring — the Survey's floor, four levels published The Closing Sky, chapter 3; ch24:5
“a console and a month” (The Closing Sky, chapter 3); the certificates on its wall are someone else's (ch03:13). ⚠ ~2317; not on the print.
29 The drafting room — the live wall Survey ring — the Survey's floor, four levels published The Closing Sky, chapter 24
“a live wall, a long table, chairs enough for the delegations and their seconds”. L5, two decks over the Hollis room.
30 The corridor of photographs — sixty years, the brass stars Survey ring — the Survey's floor, four levels published Wide Sky, chapter 2, ch02:139; The Widened Road, chapter 2
“On the way out Locke passed the sixty years of crews in their plain frames. He did not look at the brass stars. He looked at the faces.” (Wide Sky, chapter 2). One frame added ~2314 — “the Dawnward's company on the return gantry, dated and named like all the others” (The Widened Road, chapter 2).
31 Renwick's office — the pencilled charts, the port over the embassy decks Survey ring — the Survey's floor, four levels published Wide Sky, chapter 2, ch02:117; ch23:65; ch24:3, ch24:65; The Widened Road, chapter 2, ch02:15
“smaller than offices Locke had been shouted at in as a junior. Charts on the walls with real pencil on them” (Wide Sky, chapter 2); “the Mars malt he kept, by his own account, for budget season” (ch02:63); “Beyond the viewport Earth sat in her morning quarter, blue and lit and streaming traffic, and the office smelled of the good beans Renwick never admitted to sourcing” (ch24:3). At the end of the corridor of photographs, L6; the aide's desk outside.
32 The board room on the upper passage — the only carpet Survey ring — the Survey's floor, four levels published Wide Sky, chapter 23; The Closing Sky, chapter 2–103; The Closing Sky, chapter 23
“a room on the upper passage, the only carpet he knew of on Highreach” (The Closing Sky, chapter 23). The room is on the print; the boards that sat in it in 2317 are not.
33 The hearing room — three doors up the chancery ring Chancery ring published The Widened Road, chapter 26
“the size of the Dawnward's mess. No map wall; one working plate; a table of five.”

Sheet 2 Section — looking in, showing the terrace Core height 210 m · 4 floors to a landing

Sheet 3 Ring anatomy — a section across a typical ring, inboard to outboard 7 named parts

What the dock levels are made of, walking in from the berth glass — the only ring the books describe in section. The upper rings are corridors and offices off a passage; this one is a hall.

AN-GLASS The berth glass published Wide Sky, chapter 21; Wide Sky, chapter 22
“the glass above the dock was packed — dock crews and clerks and families, kids up on shoulders” (Wide Sky, chapter 21). Assessments' window looks through it: “his office had a window with the Dawnward in it — patched hull, cowlings off, hanging in the gantry lights like evidence” (ch22:11).
AN-GANTRY The gantry and its rails published Wide Sky, chapter 1, ch02:47; ch24:113; ch26:29; The Widened Road, chapter 2
Where the ship's ramp meets the station. “Bunting in survey blue was going up along the gantry rails, a rigger on a lift was arguing a banner bracket straight” (Wide Sky, chapter 24); the return photograph is taken “on the return gantry” (The Widened Road, chapter 2).
AN-FLOOR The route floor published Wide Sky, chapter 24; The Widened Road, chapter 1; The Closing Sky, chapter 1, ch05:9
“the long concourse” (Wide Sky, chapter 24); “Shift-change filled Highreach's main concourse shoulder to shoulder — dock crews inbound, clerks outbound” (The Widened Road, chapter 1); “the main route floor” (The Closing Sky, chapter 1), from which the yard-arm climbs to the cradles (ch05:9).
AN-RAILS The first rail and the upper rail published The Widened Road, chapter 26, ch26:21; Wide Sky, chapter 26
Galleries round the hall. On the honours day “cadets packed the upper rails three deep” (Wide Sky, chapter 26).
AN-MEZZ The mezzanine and its stair published The Closing Sky, chapter 1, ch01:11; ch02:3
“Nakamura ran the floor and came up the mezzanine stair twice a watch” (The Closing Sky, chapter 1); “Locke came up the mezzanine stair” (ch02:3). The deck window runs plating to overhead (ch01:3).
AN-WALL The ledger wall — the end wall published Wide Sky, chapter 24; ch26:29; ch26:123; The Closing Sky, chapter 23
“The public ledger filled the end wall” (Wide Sky, chapter 24); a dais against it stands “under the full height of the map, the whole network live above them” (ch26:29). Its Sable edge carries the transit heads — “the ledger wall by the transit heads stood gold end to end, mark on proven mark” (The Closing Sky, chapter 23).
AN-PORTS The ring ports published The Closing Sky, chapter 23, ch24:7; Wide Sky, chapter 2; ch24:3
“The ring ports poured the same abundance down they always had” (The Closing Sky, chapter 23). Every ring's outboard face is glazed toward Earth: Renwick's port (Wide Sky, chapter 2), the viewport with “Earth … in her morning quarter” (ch24:3), the mezzanine's deck window (The Closing Sky, chapter 1).

How a place here is given. Highreach gives a place by ring counted from the concourse and by level counted up a ring — “two rings from the cradle” (The Widened Road, chapter 26), “Highreach's third ring” (The Closing Sky, chapter 5), “three rings over” (The Closing Sky, chapter 1), “three levels up the Survey ring” (Wide Sky, chapter 23), “three doors up the chancery ring” (The Widened Road, chapter 26). No frame numbers, no hours: this is a wheel of strangers, not the Cairn. published The Widened Road, chapter 26; The Closing Sky, chapter 5; The Closing Sky, chapter 1; Wide Sky, chapter 23; The Widened Road, chapter 26

Sheet 4 Sector schedule — capacity against occupancy 0 in 0 places

R1 Yard rings — the third ring

Y-1 Yard cradles dock boundary published The Closing Sky, chapter 5, ch05:101; ch01:9; The Widened Road, chapter 1; Wide Sky, chapter 26
“The Dawnward sat clamped in a yard cradle on Highreach's third ring, drive trimmed to a murmur, a few hundred tonnes of gantry bolted along her flanks and a yard crew crawling her spine” (The Closing Sky, chapter 5); cast off is “cradle clamps back, the arm swinging away, the last umbilical dropping” (ch05:101). “She stood in the open cradle with the umbilicals coming off one at a time” (The Widened Road, chapter 1). Reached from the concourse's yard side by “the lift that went down to the cradles” (Wide Sky, chapter 26) and by the yard-arm from the route floor (The Closing Sky, chapter 5). Three rings over from the route floor (The Closing Sky, chapter 1).
Y-2 Yard gate, stores and the number-two crane dock boundary published The Widened Road, chapter 1; Wide Sky, chapter 26; Wide Sky, chapter 25
“The yard gate knew him; the foreman waved the chit away before Rook had it half out of his pocket” (The Widened Road, chapter 1). On the honours day: “On a flatbed by the gate the old receiver mast lay in its slings, craned out whole the day before, tagged for the yard stores … High on the number-two crane somebody had run up a single length of survey blue. It was the yard's own, nothing protocol had sent; the riggers had flown it for the engineer.” (Wide Sky, chapter 26). “A yard crane went over, trailing chain.” (Wide Sky, chapter 25).
Y-3 Yard dorm and shipwrights' hall ring boundary published The Widened Road, chapter 1; The Widened Road, chapter 25
Rook's cabin aboard had “more door than the yard dorm had ever allowed him” (Muster, chapter 1). “Highreach yard's short-handed, the band says. Shipwrights' hall opened its books to reach papers this year — first time ever.” (Muster, chapter 25, spoken at the interchange, ~2314). The hall's position on the ring is the drawing's.

R2 Freight ring

F-1 Freight locks and the rail above them dock boundary published The Widened Road, chapter 1; The Widened Road, chapter 1
“Rook ate standing at the rail above the freight locks, out of habit … Two berths down, a reach-registered hauler was working cargo, her crew moving pallets with the loose, spare economy of people who had done it in worse gravity” (The Widened Road, chapter 1). The steward at the officers' lift redirects hands “to the freight side” (ch01:7).
F-2 Working berths, freight side dock boundary published The Widened Road, chapter 26, ch26:5
“The approach queue was forty minutes deep above the freight ring” (The Widened Road, chapter 26); “Traffic control passed them down to a working berth on the freight side, two rings from the cradle where the protocol office had once rigged a dais. Line-handlers met the lines. A cargo master came up the gantry with a slate” (ch26:5). Two rings from the concourse: R2 → R3 → R4.
F-3 Chandlery and bond ring boundary fixed spec ruling 2026-08-01; kept 2026-09-21 — the only chandlery row in Wide Sky is the interchange's (The Widened Road, chapter 25), not Highreach's
A freight ring wants a chandlery; canon never shows Highreach's. Freely revisable.

R3 Visitor ring

V-1 Long visitor berths dock boundary published Wide Sky, chapter 24
“Below the office the station fell away ring by ring, the yards and the embassy floors and the long visitor berths, and Earth beyond all of it, turning.” One ring out from the concourse — the drawing's count, consistent with the freight side being two.
V-2 Cargo hall on the spinward arc — the Ferren's hall dock boundary published Wide Sky, chapter 23, ch23:71, ch23:133; ch24:67; ch26:21, ch26:65
“The Survey had berthed the Ferren in a cargo hall on the spinward arc … This morning the hall smelled of their flat grain bread and the resin they burnt a pinch of at meals, and an elder had the air handler apart on a blanket … Along one bulkhead, low, at the height of a bunk, a child had taped up a sky — sheet after sheet of paper, stars laid out in careful yellow, and at the centre of it, big as a plate, a sun drawn the colour suns are supposed to be.” (Wide Sky, chapter 23). “You berthed the Ferren at the visitor ring,” Renwick said (ch24:67) — which is what moves this hall off the freight ring, where v1 had it. “Sethi came up last from the visitor ring” (ch26:21); “a chemist up from Marseille … rewriting the visitor-ring menus” (ch26:65). The spinward arc is the only directional statement about any room on the station; the plan draws spin clockwise and puts it here.
V-3 Visitor-ring galley and hospitality ring boundary fixed spec ruling 2026-09-21 on Wide Sky, chapter 24 (“Did you know our kitchens couldn't manage their proteins? There's a chemist up from Marseille rewriting the menus”)
The kitchens exist in dialogue; their place on the ring is the drawing's.

R4 Dock levels — the main concourse

D-1 Berth cradles under the concourse glass — yard side dock boundary published Wide Sky, chapter 1, ch01:15; ch21:125, ch21:155, ch21:159; ch22:11; ch23:13; ch26:107
“Highreach hung the ship against the whole bright face of Earth. From the gantry the planet turned under them” (Wide Sky, chapter 1); “Loader rigs crawled the gantry seams, feeding crates through the aft hatch” (ch01:15). “Your berth's dressed and half the concourse is on the glass already” (ch21:125); “The berth was dressed in Survey blue, swags of it along the gantry rails, and the glass above the dock was packed … on the public wall where the routes usually stood, a live feed of their own patched hull coming in” (ch21:155); “The clamps came home somewhere aft, a shudder and then stillness” (ch21:159). Locke “went down through the dock, past his own ship sitting opened-up and mute in the cradle, and out into the station” (ch23:13). The yard side of the concourse has “the lift that went down to the cradles” (ch26:107). This is the cradle the freight side is two rings from (The Widened Road, chapter 26).
D-2 Main concourse — the main route floor ring boundary published Wide Sky, chapter 1; ch02:47; ch22:39; ch24:113–115; ch25:23; ch26:29–31, ch26:65–69, ch26:123; The Widened Road, chapter 1–9; The Widened Road, chapter 26–21, ch26:35; The Closing Sky, chapter 1, ch01:11; The Closing Sky, chapter 23
The room the trilogy keeps returning to. Wells's first walk: “past a customs post where a Nhál in survey grey was having a slow, patient argument with a manifest officer, past a noodle stall doing hard trade at a shift change, past a wall-sized public ledger where a knot of people stood watching the routes resolve” (Wide Sky, chapter 1). “The gantry was doing its shift-change trade — the noodle stall queued six deep, a rigger asleep sitting up against a bollard with his gloves still on — and past the rail Earth turned in its own light” (ch02:47). “The public ledger filled the end wall, the whole reachable network laid out in light” (ch24:115); “the wall stood at the end of everything” (ch26:123). A tall hall with tiers: “At the first rail” (The Widened Road, chapter 26), “Somebody on the upper rail” (ch26:21), “cadets packed the upper rails three deep” (Wide Sky, chapter 26), and “the mezzanine over the main route floor at Highreach, third tier up, where the deck window ran from the plating to the overhead” (The Closing Sky, chapter 1). Public plates run “between gantry advertisements” (The Widened Road, chapter 1); a feeds panel stands by the south stair (The Widened Road, chapter 26). Honours day dressing — the dais against the ledger wall, survey blue along every gantry rail, the Ferren on the south gallery — is Wide Sky, chapter 26–31 and is the print's date.
D-3 Secure store and the vault window core pressure doors fixed spec ruling 2026-09-21 on Wide Sky, chapter 23–143 — existence published, placement the drawing's
“The secure store opened at six. The duty officer brought the expedition core out of the vault on a trolley — a grey courier case the size of a toolkit, the Dawnward's crest on the lid … The officer offered the bonded courier run twice, because captains didn't usually stand in line at the vault window.” (The Long Charter, chapter 23). Locke then goes “up through the morning shift-change, past the noodle stall … past the ledger wall” to the directorate (ch23:143), which puts the vault at or below the concourse, not on the Survey ring where v1 had it.
D-4 Boat gate and the ring-boat stair dock boundary published The Widened Road, chapter 26, ch26:35, ch26:73–75, ch26:91–93; Wide Sky, chapter 25
“commuters off the ring boats with their collars up” (The Widened Road, chapter 26); “in the queue for the ring boats” (ch26:35); “The first boat went down at six” (ch26:73); “Wells was at the boat gate” (ch26:75); “The gate was two minutes from the lift. Vale took the long way, down the concourse, under the wall.” (ch26:91); “Commuters off the first ring boat came up the stair” (ch26:93). The 0600 shuttle to a ground berth is Wide Sky, chapter 25. The gate is off the concourse beyond the ledger-wall end, down a stair — not on the visitor ring.
D-5 Transient berthing ring boundary fixed spec ruling 2026-09-21 on The Closing Sky, chapter 23, ch23:87 — existence published, placement the drawing's
“a rack in transient berthing among the dock gangs and the between-ships hands, where no one knew the face or troubled to” (The Outer Run:77); “Down the berth a repair gang had a cargo-lift actuator open on the deck plates” (ch23:87). ⚠ 2317 texture, not on the print; who is sleeping there that night is the spoiler, not the room.

R5 Embassy decks

E-1 Embassy row bloc doors published Wide Sky, chapter 2, ch02:109, ch02:119
“The dock levels gave way to embassy decks — flags Locke half knew, station guards standing easy outside doors that had never been near a loader” (Wide Sky, chapter 2). Three decks, L1–L3 (the count is the drawing's; the prose says decks, levels and floors and never numbers them): “one of the embassies three decks down” from Renwick's port (ch02:109); “You came up through the embassy levels tonight” (ch02:119).
E-2 Riding-lights face ring boundary published Wide Sky, chapter 2; The Widened Road, chapter 2
“Below the Survey's floor the embassy decks wore their riding lights, and below those the whole bright machine of Highreach turned above the turning Earth.” (Wide Sky, chapter 2); eighteen months on, “the port with the embassy decks below wearing their riding lights” (The Widened Road, chapter 2). The lights are on the outboard face, seen from the Survey ring above.

R6 Survey ring — the Survey's floor, four levels

S-1 Operations gallery — the Survey's floor (L3) ring boundary published Wide Sky, chapter 2; The Closing Sky, chapter 2; The Closing Sky, chapter 2
“the embassy decks gave way to the Survey's floor, which flew no flags at all” (Wide Sky, chapter 2). “down past the operations gallery where Merrick's floor had gone quietly to work over the tightening board” (The Closing Sky, chapter 2). Level with the concourse mezzanine, which is “third tier up” (The Closing Sky, chapter 1); the board room is three levels above both (The Closing Sky, chapter 2).
S-2 Metrology loft and the bench line (L4) ring boundary published Wide Sky, chapter 25
“In the metrology loft, returning the Survey's reference plates, she passed the bench line and two junior cartographers came to their feet for no administrative reason at all.” Level and arc are the drawing's.
S-3 The Hollis annex (L3) ring boundary published The Closing Sky, chapter 3–15; The Closing Sky, chapter 24
“They gave you the Hollis room,” he said, looking at the certificates that were not hers. “I'll have that seen to. You should have a proper deck.” / “I have a console and a month. It does what I need.” (The Closing Sky, chapter 3–15). Two decks under the drafting room (The Closing Sky, chapter 24). ⚠ 2317 texture; who was given the room is the spoiler, not the room.
S-4 Drafting room (L5) ring boundary published The Closing Sky, chapter 24
“a drafting room on the Survey ring two decks above the annex … A better room than that one — a live wall, a long table, chairs enough for the delegations and their seconds” (The Closing Sky, chapter 24). The room is on the print; what was drafted in it in 2317 is not.
S-5 The corridor of photographs — the quiet upper passage (L6) ring boundary published Wide Sky, chapter 2, ch02:135, ch02:139; ch23:143; The Widened Road, chapter 2, ch02:49; The Closing Sky, chapter 23
“Just a long corridor of photographs in plain frames: sixty years of crews, dated and named, and here and there a small brass star set into a frame's corner that nobody had ever explained to Locke, because nobody had ever needed to.” (Wide Sky, chapter 2). “along the quiet upper passage to the only carpet he knew of on Highreach” (ch23:143). “Eighteen months had added one frame to the end of the Survey's corridor of photographs” (The Widened Road, chapter 2) — a ~2314 revision line.
S-6 The directorate – Renwick's office, the aide's four desks, the board room (L6) core pressure doors published Wide Sky, chapter 2, ch02:117; ch23:143–145; ch24:3, ch24:65; ch25:9–11; The Widened Road, chapter 2, ch02:15; The Widened Road, chapter 11; The Widened Road, chapter 26; The Closing Sky, chapter 23
“The directorate kept its offices three levels up the Survey ring” (Wide Sky, chapter 23); “Renwick's carpet three levels up the Survey ring” (The Widened Road, chapter 11). “Renwick's office sat at the end of the corridor, smaller than offices Locke had been shouted at in as a junior. Charts on the walls with real pencil on them.” (Wide Sky, chapter 2); “Beyond the viewport Earth sat in her morning quarter, blue and lit and streaming traffic … One wall carried the crew photographs” (ch24:3); “Renwick's hatch stood open at the corridor's end, and the good bottle was already out” (The Widened Road, chapter 2). The aide's desk (Wide Sky, chapter 23); “past his own office and its four desks” to the lift (The Widened Road, chapter 26); “the directorate kept a night shift” and a records officer “came down from the directorate level” (Wide Sky, chapter 25–11). The review board sits in “a room on the upper passage, the only carpet he knew of on Highreach” (The Closing Sky, chapter 23). v1 drew this as its own ring above the Survey's; it is the Survey ring's top level.

R7 Chancery ring

C-1 Chancery bloc doors published The Widened Road, chapter 26, ch26:13, ch26:15; Wide Sky, chapter 26
“The chancery had sent two escorts and a docket. The docket was read aloud at the foot of the ramp” (The Widened Road, chapter 26); “accompanying Dr Vale to the chancery ring — masters accompanied their officers to summonses; there was a regulation” (ch26:13); chancery clerks in the concourse crowd (ch26:15); “A woman from the chancery with a card” at the honours (Wide Sky, chapter 26). Named on the page; its place in the stack is not — see open.
C-2 Hearing room — three doors up the ring ring boundary published The Widened Road, chapter 26
“The hearing room was three doors up the chancery ring and the size of the Dawnward's mess. No map wall; one working plate; a table of five.” The room is on the print; the hearing held in it in ~2314 is not.
C-3 Chancery-ring quarters ring boundary published The Widened Road, chapter 26
“quarters assigned on the chancery ring, shipboard berth withdrawn” (The Widened Road, chapter 26). ⚠ Whose quarters, and why, is The Widened Road's turn.

What this drawing is not claiming

⚠ Every z on these sheets is the drawing's. What canon fixes is the ORDER and three counts, and the counts do not close on a naïve reading: the directorate is “three levels up the Survey ring” (Wide Sky, chapter 23; The Widened Road, chapter 11); Wells's desk is “on the mezzanine over the main route floor at Highreach, third tier up” (The Closing Sky, chapter 1) and the board sits “three levels up” from it (The Closing Sky, chapter 2); an embassy is “three decks down” from Renwick's port (Wide Sky, chapter 2); yet Locke leaves the board “down past the operations gallery … down the three levels to the concourse” (The Closing Sky, chapter 2). RULING 2026-09-21, serving five lines of six: the upper station is one terrace of seven levels, L0–L6. L0 is the concourse floor — the main route floor. The concourse hall rises three tiers (the first rail, the upper rail, the mezzanine). The embassy decks are L1–L3, inboard of the hall. The Survey ring is L3–L6: its base, the operations gallery, is level with the mezzanine; its directorate is at L6. So the directorate is the Survey base + 3, the board is the mezzanine + 3, and an embassy on L3 is three decks down from Renwick's port. The Closing Sky, chapter 2's ‘three levels’ is the directorate's own three, the walk on to the concourse compressed as this station compresses every walk. Drawn: R4 z −20 (L0), R5 z −12 (L1–L3), R6 z −2 (L3–L6), R7 z +10 (unplaced by canon; the drawing's).

⚠ NO ARMS. Nothing projects past the yard ring. Ships come to cradles inside the rings — under the concourse glass, on the freight side, in the yard — and to “the long visitor berths” (Wide Sky, chapter 24); tugs walk them in from the outer marker (Wide Sky, chapter 21, ch21:153). The yard-arm (The Closing Sky, chapter 5, ch05:101) is a cradle gantry, not a spur.

Seal class — what shuts around this volume

Ring boundary
Bloc doors
Core pressure doors
Dock boundary

Grade of every figure on these sheets

published Stated in the books. If a drawing disagrees, the drawing is wrong.
derived Arithmetic on published facts; the working is given.
fixed Canon was silent here and the drawing decided.

Systems

Spin

derived

The wheel turns — 1 g at the concourse, 38.6 s a turn

“the whole wheel's talking about you” (Wide Sky, chapter 21). Rotation is the gravity, as the era's older habitats have it; 1 g at r 370 gives 1.55 rpm and a gradient from 1.14 g in the yard to 0.85 g on the chancery ring (see gravity). Spin axis normal to the orbital plane, so Earth lies in the spin plane and comes round under every outboard port once a turn — “Earth coming round underneath” (The Closing Sky, chapter 1), “From the gantry the planet turned under them” (Wide Sky, chapter 1) — with no precession to budget for. Rim speed at the concourse cradles ≈ 60 m/s, which is why tugs walk a hull in from the outer marker and clamps take her.

Period38.6 s derived; 1 g at r 370
Rim speed, concourse60 m/s derived
Gradient1.14 g yard → 0.85 g chancery derived; “worse gravity” on the freight ring, The Widened Road, chapter 1

Wide Sky, chapter 21–147, ch02:117; The Widened Road, chapter 1; the 1 g anchor is the drawing's (spec ruling 2026-09-21)

Traffic control

published

Lanes, gates, the outer marker and the tugs

“At eleven forty, exactly, Highreach turned them loose. ‘Dawnward, Highreach control. Released to the survey lane, gate four. Traffic is yours to the lattice. Fair roads.’” (Wide Sky, chapter 2–147); Dawes takes her out “threading the yard-tugs and the long-haul queues” (ch02:151). Homecoming: “Approach confirmed, lane four, tugs at the outer marker” (ch21:129); “The tugs picked them up at the outer marker and walked them in” (ch21:153). “The approach queue was forty minutes deep above the freight ring … behind a grain carrier and a string of yard tugs” (The Widened Road, chapter 26). Gate slots are scarce — “a gate slot that better-connected ships had been queuing on for weeks” (Wide Sky, chapter 2).

Approach queue, ~231440 minutes deep The Widened Road, chapter 26
Survey lanegate four Wide Sky, chapter 2
Arrivallane four, tugs at the outer marker Wide Sky, chapter 21

Wide Sky, chapter 2, ch02:145–151; ch21:125–153; The Widened Road, chapter 26–5; The Closing Sky, chapter 5

The public ledger wall

published

The end wall of the concourse, full height — the transit heads along its Sable edge

The node-ledger rendered as architecture. “the whole reachable network laid out in light — and along its far edge, where for the whole of Locke's life there had been nothing at all, the Sable Reach was filling in … unforgeable, authenticated, open to anyone alive who cared to read them” (Wide Sky, chapter 24). Its security property is authorship and immutability, never secrecy — “Within the hour it would be on every plate on Highreach; by station morning it would be on Earth” (ch22:65) — which is why it can stand in a hall with a noodle stall at the other end. Repeated on public plates “between gantry advertisements” (The Widened Road, chapter 1) and on the drafting room's live wall (The Closing Sky, chapter 24).

Wide Sky, chapter 1; ch22:23, ch22:65; ch24:115; ch25:23; The Widened Road, chapter 26; The Closing Sky, chapter 23

Spine transit and lifts

published

The transit, three lifts, the ring boats

The transit stop is forty metres from the Dawnward's ramp foot (Wide Sky, chapter 2) and the station spine carries a man up to the directorate (ch24:7). Three lifts on the concourse: the officers' lift, whose steward sends hands “to the freight side” (The Widened Road, chapter 1); the yard-side lift “that went down to the cradles” (Wide Sky, chapter 26); the directorate's lift, two minutes from the boat gate (The Widened Road, chapter 26). From the freight side the way to the concourse is “the whole lift down” (The Widened Road, chapter 26). Ring boats run to Earth from the boat gate; the first goes down at six (ch26:73). Stairs where the books walk them: the mezzanine stair (The Closing Sky, chapter 1), the south stair (Wide Sky, chapter 26), the ring-boat stair (The Widened Road, chapter 26).

Wide Sky, chapter 2–43; ch24:7, ch24:25; ch26:107; The Widened Road, chapter 1; The Widened Road, chapter 26, ch26:67, ch26:91; The Closing Sky, chapter 1

Cradles and gantries

published

Clamps, umbilicals, line-handlers, a gantry — under glass, on the freight side, in the yard

A hull comes to a cradle and clamps take her — “The clamps came home somewhere aft, a shudder and then stillness” (Wide Sky, chapter 21). “Loader rigs crawled the gantry seams, feeding crates through the aft hatch” (ch01:15). In refit “She stood in the open cradle with the umbilicals coming off one at a time” (The Widened Road, chapter 1); “Through the bay glass the cradle umbilicals were down to two” (ch01:93). Heavy work goes to the yard: “a few hundred tonnes of gantry bolted along her flanks and a yard crew crawling her spine” (The Closing Sky, chapter 5). The refit master condemns a drive “with a wax pencil and no ceremony at all” (Wide Sky, chapter 23).

Dawnward's positions4 across the trilogy under the glass (Wide Sky); yard cradle (The Widened Road, chapter 1); freight side (The Widened Road, chapter 26); third-ring yard cradle (The Closing Sky)

Wide Sky, chapter 1; ch21:159; ch23:3–13; ch26:5; The Widened Road, chapter 1, ch01:93; The Widened Road, chapter 26; The Closing Sky, chapter 5, ch05:101

Station time

published

Station time, civil time, a night shift

“At 0340 station time the package was whole” (Wide Sky, chapter 22); “cut at 0117 station time; the directorate kept a night shift” (ch25:9); “recorded at 04:12, Highreach civil time” (The Widened Road, chapter 24). Title-block clock for the print: station time.

Wide Sky, chapter 22; ch25:9; The Widened Road, chapter 24

What was checked

The books state distances aboard this ship. The drawing has to produce the same ones or it is wrong — so it is made to, and the working is shown. These run again on every build; a compartment moved by a metre fails them.

“The dock levels give way to embassy decks, and the embassy decks give way to the Survey's floor” Wide Sky, chapter 2 (“Up-ring the station was a different country. The dock levels gave way to embassy decks … and the embassy decks gave way to the Survey's floor, which flew no flags at all.”)

Dock levels R4 at z −20 (L0), embassy decks R5 at z −12 (L1–L3), Survey ring R6 at z −2 (L3–L6): −20 < −12 < −2, ascending in the published order with nothing between.
“The directorate is three levels up the Survey ring” Wide Sky, chapter 23 (“The directorate kept its offices three levels up the Survey ring.”); The Widened Road, chapter 11 (“Renwick's carpet three levels up the Survey ring”)

Survey ring drawn L3–L6, four levels: base (operations gallery) L3, directorate L6. 6 − 3 = 3. Drawn inside the Survey ring, not as a ring above it.
“An embassy is three decks down from Renwick's port” Wide Sky, chapter 2 (“one of the embassies three decks down”); ch02:117 (“Below the Survey's floor the embassy decks wore their riding lights”)

Renwick at L6; embassy decks L1–L3; the top embassy deck is at L3: 6 − 3 = 3. Outboard of the Survey's base, so from a port in the Survey ring's outboard face it is below.
“The allocation mezzanine is third tier up over the main route floor, and the board sits three levels above it” The Closing Sky, chapter 1 (“the mezzanine over the main route floor at Highreach, third tier up”); The Closing Sky, chapter 2 (“the thing waiting for him three levels up”); The Closing Sky, chapter 2 (“down the three levels to the concourse”)

Concourse floor L0; mezzanine L3 (third tier); board room L6: 3 + 3 = 6, the same level the directorate check reaches from the Survey's base. ch02:103's ‘three levels’ is the directorate's own three (L6 → L3, past the operations gallery), the walk on to L0 compressed — recorded in terraceNote as the ruling, not hidden.
“The freight side is two rings from the concourse cradle; the yard is the third ring and three rings over from the route floor” The Widened Road, chapter 26 (“a working berth on the freight side, two rings from the cradle where the protocol office had once rigged a dais”); The Closing Sky, chapter 5 (“a yard cradle on Highreach's third ring”); The Closing Sky, chapter 1 (“a yard berth three rings over”); The Closing Sky, chapter 2 (“He was three rings from his own ship”)

Counting from R4: R3 = 1, R2 = 2, R1 = 3. Freight R2 = two rings; yard R1 = three rings = the third ring. Both counts close on one numbering.
“From Renwick's office the station falls away ring by ring — the yards, the embassy floors, the long visitor berths — and Earth beyond” Wide Sky, chapter 24

R6 at z −2; R5 embassy at −12, R3 visitor at −44, R1 yard at −96 — all below, all outboard on a stepped stack; Earth is outward of everything under spin. Only the chancery ring (R7, fixed) sits above, and it is not in the sentence.
“The Ferren's cargo hall on the spinward arc is on the visitor ring” Wide Sky, chapter 23 (“a cargo hall on the spinward arc”); ch24:67 (“You berthed the Ferren at the visitor ring”); ch26:21 (“Sethi came up last from the visitor ring”)

V-2 on R3, arc [180, 290]. Three lines, one ring. v1 had it on R2 with no line for R2.
“The transit is forty metres from the ramp foot” Wide Sky, chapter 2–43 (“Sethi was waiting at the foot of the ramp … ‘It's forty metres.’”)

LM-BERTH at arc 95, LM-TRANSIT at arc 101 on R4, r 370 m: 6° × π/180 × 370 = 38.7 m; the ramp foot sits a metre or two inboard of the berth mark. Drawn as a dimension line on the plan.
“The boat gate is two minutes from the lift, down the concourse, under the wall” The Widened Road, chapter 26 (“The gate was two minutes from the lift. Vale took the long way, down the concourse, under the wall.”)

LM-DIRLIFT at arc 240, LM-LEDGER at 232, LM-BOATGATE at 263 on R4: 23° × π/180 × 370 = 149 m ≈ 2 min at 1.3 m/s, and the wall lies between the lift and the gate on the long way round.
“The drafting room is two decks above the Hollis annex on the Survey ring” The Closing Sky, chapter 24 (“a drafting room on the Survey ring two decks above the annex they had loaned her”)

S-3 Hollis annex at L3, S-4 drafting room at L5, both on R6: 5 − 3 = 2, inside the ring's four levels.
“The hearing room is three doors up the chancery ring, the size of the Dawnward's mess” The Widened Road, chapter 26

C-2 on R7, drawn as the third door of a run up the ring. The Dawnward's mess spans frames on her own sheet; the room is sized to it, not to a sector.

Service history

~2312, Book One — departure
The Dawnward at a berth under the concourse glass, over quota by nine tonnes and leaving in a day (Wide Sky, chapter 1); Sethi walks Locke forty metres to the transit (ch02:43); Renwick's briefing at the end of the corridor of photographs, three levels up the Survey ring; “At eleven forty, exactly, Highreach turned them loose” (ch02:145).
Day 110, ~2312 — THE PRINT DATE
The honours. “the welcome — that's set for Day one hundred ten, full honours, the Director presenting himself” (Wide Sky, chapter 22). The dais against the ledger wall under the full height of the map; survey blue on every gantry rail; the noodle stall shuttered, its cook at the rail in a clean apron; cadets three deep on the upper rails; the Ferren on the south gallery's long rail; Sethi on the third step of the south stair; the Dawnward opened up under the yard lamps, the old mast on a flatbed by the gate, one length of survey blue on the number-two crane (ch26:5–69). “By evening the concourse had loosened without emptying … two berths over a freighter crew had rigged deck lights and got up a smaller, louder ceremony of their own” (ch26:123).
~2314, Book Two – Rev B
Refit complete, “sailing at noon to re-survey the Sable Reach” on the public plates (The Widened Road, chapter 1); the yard gate knows Rook; one frame added to the end of the corridor of photographs (ch02:3). Then the return: “The approach queue was forty minutes deep above the freight ring” (ch26:3), a working berth on the freight side, and the concourse arguing “at the rails, at the plates, at the stall counters, in the queue for the ring boats” (ch26:35).
~2314, Book Two — the hearing
⚠ SPOILER. A docket read aloud at the foot of the ramp; a seal suspended; quarters on the chancery ring and a hearing three doors up it; the six o'clock boat (The Widened Road, chapter 26–93).
~2317, Book Three – Rev C
⚠ SPOILER. Six weeks of Earth's emergency directive: the deep-watch allocation desk on the mezzanine, corridor-defence on the route floor (The Closing Sky, chapter 1–02); the Dawnward in a yard cradle on the third ring (ch05:5); the Hollis room (ch03:13); “They had cut the concourse lights a quarter since the rationing bit; the gold of the transit heads that had run wall to wall … now ran gapped” (ch24:7); a tea cart at the shift change and a single word on the public feed above the concourse (ch23:9); transient berthing among the dock gangs (ch23:77); the drafting room's live wall (ch24:5).

Compiled from

Wide Sky — chapters 01, 02, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26
The Widened Road — chapters 01, 02, 11, 23, 24, 25, 26
The Closing Sky — chapters 01, 02, 03, 05, 23, 24