The upper deck, in turn, is dragged along faster than it would normally go, at its height. It would fly away into a high ellipse if the cables ever let go.

That’s why we feel a small artificial gravity at each end, directed away from the center of mass. It creates the ponds in my garden, and helps prevent the body decay of pure weightlessness.

When I entered the darkened control chamber, I moved quietly behind the chief flight controller and watched. The controller’s main screen showed the interdeck elevator stopped about three klicks above B Deck. The reason for its delay came into view in a few moments: a small delta-wing whose white tiles shone against the starfield. I stood in the shadows and listened as our operators conversed with the shuttle pilot.

“Pacifica, this is A for Arnold Deck control. You are cleared for orbit intersection. In a minute we’ll transfer you to B for Brown, for final approach. Extend your landing gear now.”

“Roger, Arnold Deck. Pacifica, ready for landing.”

The orbiter drifted toward B Deck. On the controller’s screen I could see Pacifica’s landing gear deploy in the deep black of space.

The inner face of B Deck was covered with a flat surface of aluminum plates, surrounded by a low fence of soft nylon mesh.

Pacifica was at the highest point of her elliptical orbit. Her velocity would, for a few minutes at apogee, be virtually the same as B Deck’s, allowing a gentle approach and contact. (A few purists still refused to call the docking a “landing.”) The shuttle gave off small puffs of reaction gas to align her approach.

It was a beautiful technique, and the unargued greatest asset of the Tank Farm. When Pacifica was secured to B Deck, she would be carried along in the Farm’s unconventional circular orbit until it was time for her to go. Then Pacifica would simply be pushed over the edge of B Deck, to fall toward the Earth again, finishing her original ellipse.