Fraeska
| Fraeska | |
|---|---|
| English gloss | reef colony (a living desalinator) (translation, not identification) |
| Role | Food |
| Where found | A circulated tank in the hold of every ocean-going ship |
| Kept / wild | Kept; colonies are split from a parent stock, never raised from nothing |
| Used for | Taking the salt out of seawater |
| Lexicon | Fraeska |
The Fraeska is a reef animal kept aboard ships in a circulated tank to take the salt out of seawater. Seawater is pumped in and kept moving past the colony; the animals consume the salt and build it into their own structure; over several days the water sweetens, a tender judges the batch fit and draws it into storage, and the tank is topped up again.
It does not end the need for stored water. A colony works at a rate rather than on demand and cannot be made usefully large — more water would mean a tank the size of a small pond. What a Fraeska gives is a voyage that lasts as long as the colony holds rather than as long as a tank does; every ship still sails with full tanks. The colony grows out of what it removes and must be cut back; it must be fed, since nothing drifts past it in a tank, and an unfed colony stops working before it dies. Output falls with cold water, a bloom, or a fortnight of bad care, and a colony that fails mid-ocean leaves a crew with what is in the tanks and a hastily plotted course for land.
Keeping one is husbandry rather than mechanism, and a good tender is a specialist. Every Fraeska on every ship came from another one, and a good colony has a line behind it the captain will tell you about unprompted. Failure is visible and embarrassing.