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It had taken Ender a few moments to grasp what Planter and Ela were deciding between them; Valentine, who had not been working with them for years as Ender had, still didn't understand. "What's happening?" she asked. "What are they talking about?"
It was Ela who answered. "Planter is proposing that we purge one pequenino of all copies of the descolada virus, put him in a clean space where he can't be contaminated, and then see if he still has a mind."
"That can't be good science," said Valentine. "There are too many other variables. Aren't there? I thought the descolada was involved in every part of pequenino life."
"Lacking the descolada would mean that Planter would immediately get sick and then eventually die. What having the descolada did to Quim, lacking it will do to Planter."
"You can't mean to let him do it," said Valentine. "It won't prove anything. He might lose his mind because of illness. Fever makes people delirious."
"What else can we do?" asked Planter. "Wait until Ela finds a way to tame the virus, and only then find out that without it in its intelligent, virulent form, we are not pequeninos at all, but merely piggies? That we were only given the power of speech by the virus within us, and that when it was controlled, we lost everything and became nothing more than brothertrees? Do we find that out when you loose the virus-killer?"
"But it's not a serious experiment with a control--"
"It's a serious experiment, all right," said Ender. "The kind of experiment you perform when you don't give a damn about getting funding, you just need results and you need them now. The kind of experiment you perform when you have no idea what the results will be or even if you'll know how to interpret them, but there are a bunch of crazy pequeninos planning to get in starships and spread a planet-killing disease all over the galaxy so you've got to do something."
"It's the kind of experiment you perform," said Planter, "when you need a hero."
"When we need a hero?" asked Ender. "Or when you need to be a hero?"
"I wouldn't talk if I were you," said Valentine dryly. "You've done a few stints as a hero yourself over the centuries."
"It may not be necessary anyway," said Ela. "Quara knows a lot more about the descolada than she's telling. She may already know whether the intelligent adaptability of the descolada can be separated from its life-sustaining functions. If we could make a virus like that, we could test the effect of the descolada on pequenino intelligence without threatening the life of the subject."