Valentine - the real one, not Jane - assembled the leguminids who were on Lusitania for a briefing.  They did it outside on a sloping lawn, so that anybody who wanted to could lie back and yet still be able to see the visual displays Valentine mounted for them from the projector beside her.

"I didn't make any of the displays myself," said Valentine.  "The researchers whose work I'm reporting created them."

"So why aren't those researchers making the pre-sentations themselves?" asked Lanth.

"They're hard at work, and coming here would distract them," said Valentine.  "My projects don't have the same level of urgency, so I'm free to present this to you."

"In other words," said Dys, "you haven't told the real researchers that we're here, and you don't want anybody to know about us yet."

"Lanth and Dys, if you believe the information I'm going to present will be so far beneath your standards as to be worthless to you, I urge you to return indoors.  If you remain with this meeting, then I ask that all questions be pertinent to the topic under discussion."

Sprout was amused by the exchange, especially because of the irony that what Lanth and Dys interrupted Valentine's explanation of how the visual aids, none of which had yet been displayed, were created by the original researchers, none of whom had yet to be named or seen.  In other words, Dys and Lanth were asking questions that were precisely pertinent to the question then under discussion.

But Sprout knew that if he expressed this thought, merely for the amusement value, it would quite possibly lead to his ejection from the meeting, and he wanted to stay here, because there was a reasonable chance that something might be revealed that would give shape to his own research projects.

Valentine began speaking with clarity and brevity, and all the visual aids that popped up into the air upon her command were clear and to the point.  She gave them a brief recap of the history of the descolada virus since the arrival of humans on Lusitania, and on the molecular steps to first control the virus and then to defang it so that it would make no further adaptations.

That's when Sprout raised his hand.  Valentine called on him.  "There is no control population, so do you have any evidence that your adaptation of such a self-adapting virus has been effective, and will continue to be effective?"

"As you said, there is no way to test," said Valentine.

"So, no."

"We have this result:  It has been effective so far, and we have seen no evidence of adaptation by the descolada virus.  We monitor it frequently."

"How frequently?" asked Sprout.

"Twice a day, with samples from different locations," said Valentine.  "It's an imperfect system, but this is what seemed feasible and so far, so good."

Sprout recognized that "so far, so good" was about the best that could be hoped for at present.