Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.

<passage>:
did the heavenly bodies of this strange space. It was pure conjecture, but it seemed well supported by the observable A bunch of kids in bright new uniforms, transiting the constellations in a disreputable leathery-tentacled, chlorine-breathing Eridans take them seriously? large and small, lay in a globular cluster dead ahead. They spread out in all directions for more than half a parsec ... dull, rocky little just a swarm of innocuous seeming planetoids ... the first explorable worlds that they had neared in this universe. Strike decided to heave it in so many words ... no one was anxious for another encounter with the rapacious Eridans. With typically human adaptiveness they had sublimated their fear of the unknown space in which they found themselves. Curiosity took the place of fear and here was something close at hand to probe. Anthropoid inquisitiveness prevailed. Cleopatra in the Combined Solarian Navies, bless her little iron rump! Gorman means us. And I think we've been had, that's what I think!" nearby scowled at Whitley. The Lieutenant subsided with a final small, "Warp!" An imported Venusian quartet began to play softly. Strike ordered another round of drinks from the red-skinned Martian tending bar and Fleet skeeterboats had discovered a race of group-minded, non-human intelligences on the planets of 40 Eridani C. They lived in frozen worlds that were untenable for humans. And they were apparently all parts of a single entity that never left the home globe ... a thing no human had seen. The group-mind. They were rabidly isolationist and they had refused any commerce with the Solar Combine. Only CSN Intelligence knew that the Eridans were warlike ... and that they were strongly suspected of having interstellar flight.... work under the Bureau of Research and Development meant innovations and tests. And Commander Strykalski was concerned. The beloved Old Aphrodisiac didn't take kindly to innovations. At least she never had before, and Strike could see no reason to suppose the cantankerous warship. The Cleopatra's crew was a unit ... a team in the true sense of the word. They served in her because they wanted to ... would serve in no other. That's the way Strike ran his crew, and that's the way the eyelash-curlers when the Eridans are likely to be swooshing around old begun. Swarms of techmen seemed to burst from the dome and take her over. Welders and physicists, naval architects and shipfitters, all armed with voluminous blueprints and atomic torches set to work on re-crossed, shunted and spliced. Weird screen-like appendages were welded to her bow and stern. Workmen and engineers stomped through her companionways, bawling incomprehensible orders. And her crew watched in mute dismay. They had nothing to say about it... "And why was the chosen?" added Celia curiously. "Well, I'll make it short," Ivy said. "We're going to make a hyper-ship ... king size. She'll be able to take us through the hyper-spatial barrier." telecameras in the warp...." Ivy's face sobered. "We got plates of star-fields ... star-fields that were utterly different and ... and "Why us?" Cob asked thoughtfully. Strykalski was on his feet. "Attack!" "The nonhumans from Eridanus have launched a major invasion of the solar Combine! All the colonies in Centaurus are being invaded!" Strike felt the bottom dropping out of his stomach, and he knew that all the others felt the same. If this was a war, they were the ones who would have to fight it. And the Eridans! Awful leathery creatures with tentacles ... chlorine breathers! They would make a formidable enemy, welded as they were into one fighting unit by the functioning of the group-mind.... wartime! The Cleopatra's a warship and there's a war on now. If you can have your gear jerry-rigged in three hours, you can come along and test it when we have the chance. Otherwise the hell with it!" planet of 40 Eridani C II unquote," said the squawk-box flatly. "Eridans!" cried Ivy. formation." Strike cursed. "They've spotted us and they want to scoop us in with that force net! Damn that group-mind of theirs ... it makes for uncanny deadly pale, mouth pinched and drawn. This was the first time in battle for any of them ... and she dug her fingernails into her palms trying not to be afraid. Strykalski was rapping out his orders with machine-gun rapidity, making ready to fight his ship if need be ... and against lop-sided odds. But years of training were guiding him now. speed. Within seconds, contact would be made with the advance units of the alien fleet. Old Aphrodisiac readied herself for war. Like a maddened bull terrier, the old monitor charged at the Eridan horde. Within the black hulls strange, tentacled creatures watched her in scanners that were activated by infrared light. The chlorine atmosphere grew tense as the Tellurian warship drove full at the pulsating net of interlocked force lines. Parsecs away, on a frozen world were a dull red shrunken sun shone dimly through fetid air, the thing that was the group-mind of the Eridans guided the thousand leathery tentacles that controlled the hundred and fifty black spaceships. The soft quivering bulk of it throbbed with excitement as it prepared to kill the tiny Tellurian thing that dared to threaten its right to conquest. the life from her second-order generators, and she slowed, like the her flanks as she turned and twisted. One touched her atmospheric fins and melted them into slowly congealing globes of steel glowing with a white heat. She fought back with whorls of atomic fire that sped from her rifles to wreak havoc among her attackers. Being non-entities in themselves, and only limbs of the single mentality that rested secure on its home world, the Eridans lacked the vicious will to live that drove the Tellurian warship and her crew. But their numbers wore her down, cutting her strength with each blow that chanced to connect. space and leathery aliens died, their black ships burst asunder by the violence of new atoms being created from old. But there were too many. They hemmed her in, heat rays ever slashing, They couldn't last another ten minutes. It was only the practiced hands battle. "She can't stand much more of this!" Cob was screaming at the gun-pointers through the open communicator hyper drive's warp field. With a prayer on his lips, he slapped at the switches with wild abandon.... We're the aliens here...." dim, dancing witchfire. It was as though the ship were being bombarded by a continuous shower of microscopic fire bombs. Whitley found refuge in his favorite expression. "Ye gods and little catfish!" beings been so frighteningly apart space ... and the danger of the questing Eridans ... that kept one or Then Strike broke the spell. The effort was great, but it brushed away the shadows that had risen to plague them from the tortured abyss of racial memory. It brought them back to what they were: highly civilized people, parts of an intricately technological culture. Their ship was a part of that culture. The only part they could cling to. The Cleopatra agoraphobia must be more acute, reasoned Strike, and Bayne must have They fell silent, seeking comfort in each other's presence. and her crew were no part of this alien cosmos, no prime-space instruments could detect the errant mass. Like a microscopic bull in a gargantuan china shop, the Tellurian warship existed under a completely different set of physical laws than

<question>:
Why did the Eridans not care if they died?

<options>:
A They were breathing chlorine gas
B They had no mind inside their bodies
C They had 150 spaceships
D They were warlike

<answer>:

B