Seed viability in Vanilla?

[Royal]

A very generous friend shared a few Vanilla seed capsules with me. Her goal was to make Vanilla, but I want to try to germinate them. The capsules already smell like vanilla, and they were turning brown. Are the seeds still viable, or contaminated beyond salvage?

I sliced them open and scraped out the seed (along with a sticky brown paste.) I smeared this into a thin layer on a piece of filter paper to dry over silica. I figured if there was any hope, drying the seeds fully would be step one. Anybody have any experience with this situation? Any germination info for this genus?

Thanks,

Royal