And they were tired of the work. It seemed they all felt that way, and there was a long silence as they each returned to their lab benches and resumed work in a desultory way. Peter took his milking beaker off the ice block, labeled it, and put it on his shelf of the refrigerator. He noticed something rattling around with the change in his pocket, and, idly, he took the object out. It was the little thing he’d found in his brother’s rented Ferrari. He flicked it across the bench surface. It spun.

Amar Singh, the plant biologist, was watching. “What’s that?”

“Oh. It broke off my brother’s car. Some part. I thought it would scratch the leather.”

“Could I see-?”

“Sure.” It was a little larger than his thumbnail. “Here,” Peter said, without looking at it closely.

Amar put it in the flat palm of his hand, and squinted at it. “This doesn’t look like a car part to me.”

“No?”

“No. I’d say it’s an airplane.”

Peter stared. It was so small he couldn’t really make out details, but now that he looked closely, it did indeed appear to be a tiny airplane. Like something from a model kit, the kind of kits he’d made as a boy. Maybe a fighter jet to glue onto an aircraft carrier. But if so, it was like no fighter jet he had ever seen. This one had a blunted nose, an open seat, no canopy, and a boxy rear with tiny stubby flanges: no real wings to speak of.

“Do you mind…”

Amar was already heading for the big magnifying glass by his workbench. He put the object under the glass, and turned it carefully. “This is quite fantastic,” he said.

Peter pushed his head in to look. Under magnification, the airplane-or whatever it was-appeared exquisitely beautiful, rich with detail. The cockpit had amazingly intricate controls, so minute it was hard to imagine how they had been carved. Amar was thinking the same thing.