Schmidt looked at Wilson blankly.

“It’s warm, Hart,” Wilson said. “The black box had a power source. That power source leaked heat. That heat kept it relatively warm long after everything else around it entropied itself into equilibrium.”

“The battery is dead,” Schmidt said. “Even if it was warm, it wouldn’t be anymore.”

“That depends on your definition of ‘warm,’” Wilson said. “The design of the black box means that it has some areas inside of it acting like insulators. Even if the battery’s dead, it’ll take longer for the black box to reach a temperature equilibrium with space than it would if it were a solid shard of metal. I don’t need it to be warm like the inside of this room, Hart. I just need it to be a fraction of a degree warmer than everything else around it.”

The display screen flickered and the ghostly blob of attenuated Polk molecules was replaced by a thermal map that was a deep blue-black. Wilson gave the thermal map his attention.

“So you’re looking for something that’s ever so slightly above absolute zero,” Schmidt said.

“Space is actually a couple of degrees above absolute zero,” Wilson said. “Particularly inside a planetary system.”

“Seems like an irrelevant detail,” Schmidt said.

“And you call yourself a scientist,” Wilson said.

“No, I don’t,” Schmidt said.

“Good thing, then,” Wilson said.

“So what happens if it has entropied out?” Schmidt said. “If it’s the same temperature as everything else around it?”

“Well, then, we’re screwed,” Wilson said.

“I don’t love your bracing honesty,” Schmidt said.

“Ha!” Wilson said, and suddenly the image in the display pitched inward, falling vertiginously toward something that was invisible until almost the last second, and was an only slightly lighter blue-black than everything around it even then.

“Is that it?” Schmidt asked.

“Let me change the false color temperature scale,” Wilson said. The object, spherical, suddenly blossomed green.

“That’s the black box,” Schmidt said.

“It’s the right size and shape,” Wilson said. “If it’s not the black box, the universe is messing with us. There are some other warmer objects out there, but they’re not the right size profile.”

“What are they?” Schmidt asked.

Wilson shrugged. “Possibly chunks of the Polk with sealed pockets of air in them. Right now, don’t know, don’t care.” He pointed at the sphere. “This is what we came for.”

Schmidt peered closely at the image. “How much warmer is it than everything around it?” he asked.

“Point zero zero three degrees Kelvin,” Wilson said. “Another hour or two and we would never have found it.”

“Don’t tell me that,” Schmidt said. “It makes me retroactively nervous.”

“Science is built on tiny variances, my friend,” Wilson said.

“So now what?” Schmidt asked.

“Now I get to tell Captain Coloma to warm up the shuttle, and you get to tell your boss that if this mission fails, it will be because of her, not us,” Wilson said.

“I think I’ll avoid putting it that way,” Schmidt said.