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EUROPA!
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We had a difficult and embarrassing experience with the Sawmi a few days ago. Suddenly, completely without warning, he came bursting, stark naked and even more wild-eyed than usual, out of his bathroom. He careened through the usually sedate corridors of the Lettuce Sutra vault, soaking wet and shedding great sprays of water like a large shaggy dog. He was gesticulating wildly, and frantically waving the small rubber shark that he always keeps in his bathtub "for good luck." He was shouting and hollering something completely incoherent, which we later realized was "Europa! Europa! I have found him!"
Naturally, at first we assumed that he had just become overexcited and confused again, but when he headed out the front gate and into the street we were forced to subdue him. Two of us tackled him while another soaked him down with pepper spray. In retrospect this seems to have been ill-considered and unfortunate, but it seemed absolutely necessary at the time.
It was only later, when we became aware of the Sawmi's new Crackpot Theory, and the parallels with the story of Archimedes and the golden crown that we began to question, even slightly, the wisdom of our actions.
In any case, several hours later - after he had somewhat recovered - he rather reproachfully related the following "revelation" to us.
As background, you should keep in mind that from the time The Blackshark first psychically contacted the Sawmi, the Sawmi has been obsessively concerned with locating the Blackshark. This is extremely important to him because of his desire to avoid any possibility of physical confrontation, which he says would be harmful to his health.
Before we lay out the Sawmi's revelation, a little information about Europa, one of the moons circling Jupiter, may be helpful. Europa has been in the news recently because many scientists now see it as the most likely place in the solar system, outside the Earth, for life to have arisen.
Europa is one of the four major satellites of Jupiter first discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. It is slightly larger than the earth's moon (diameter 3,138 miles), and is now thought to have a rocky interior covered with a shell, over 60 miles thick, of water. This water is possibly liquid, overlain by a relatively thin veneer of ice.
Recent findings and speculation are summarized in the following excerpt from Science News, (Vol.152, Nov. 1, 1997).
Jupiter's moon Europa may hide a vast water world beneath its icy surface. Recent images taken by the Galileo spacecraft show fractures that could be caused by water welling up from below. Other regions show signs that sections of the surface appear to have been pulled apart and rotated as if they were icebergs floating atop water or slushy ice.... Surface images don't constitute proof of what's underneath, cautions Steven W. Squyres of Cornell University. "You're asking a lot to say , 'Yeah, a kilometer down below this bizarre surface there's liquid water,' merely on the basis of photographs of the surface." The same source of energy that might keep water from freezing-- the flexing of Europa caused by the gravitational tug-of-war between the moon's siblings and Jupiter-- could also drive volcanic activity. "It's almost inescapable that at some time in Europa's history, back 3 to 4 billion years ago... there was liquid water and volcanism," Squyres says. "If one believes that life arises at hydrothermal systems... then you've got a credible scenario for life arising on Europa..." Says Christopher F. Chyba of The university of Arizona, "if life doesn't require direct sunlight to make the chemistry go... then Europa is potentially the most interesting place in the Solar System to look for life."
Anyway, at our regular "gripe and bitch" session later that evening the Sawmi, now relatively calm and dressed in his flowing, blue polyester, made-in-Korea "Sawmi Outfit," which he always wears when he wants to impress people, made the following announcement.
"Folks, there's no doubt about it. Everything fits together. This solves all the problems that have vexed me all these years (see pp256-260 of the Sawmi's book). Aquatic life must have developed there. Everybody knows about those worm-things and other stuff that live around those black smokers on the ocean floor. Hell, why wouldn't the same thing have happened on Europa? Now once there is a steady food supply like that, any fool can see that it's only a matter of time until the sharks spring up and take over.
"So that's that. The bastard's on Europa. We can relax a little. Also you can all begin, starting now, to devote all the energy that is freed up by this revelation to coming up with new money-making schemes to help keep this place afloat."
After the usual hooting and jeering that always greets the Sawmi's revelations died down, he looked around sorrowfully and, muttering darkly to himself, made his way distractedly from the room.
Read The Sawmi's Archive of Crackpot Theories