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

<passage>:
not see him. The single red switch pointed downward on the instrument It was a good job and Max Alben knew whom he had to thank for it—his lolling on the couches that had been set up around the time machine. He shrugged rapidly out of his rags, as he had been instructed in the This was the first time he had seen it, since he had been taught how to operate it on a dummy model, and now he stared at the great transparent coils and the susurrating energy bubble with much respect. outside his powers of comprehension. But Max Alben knew how to run it, and he knew, roughly, what it was supposed to accomplish. He knew also that this was the first backward journey of any great duration and, being scientifically unpredictable, might well be the death of him. If his great-grandfather had not volunteered for the earliest time-travel experiments way back in the nineteen-seventies, back even before the Blight, it would never have been discovered that he and his livestock wealth of the Western Hemisphere—thoroughly content with the half-pail of dried apricots he received each and every payday. No, if his great-grandfather had not demonstrated long ago his unique capacity for remaining conscious during time travel, Max Alben would not now be shifting from foot to foot in a physics laboratory, much like a small boy after completing a recitation before visiting dignitaries from the Board of Education. originally planned." The Secretary-General of the United Nations beamed. "Thus preventing the Blight, making it nonexistent, as it were, producing a present-day Alben kept his eyes deferentially in their direction, too, as he had where Alben stood in the entrance of the time machine and handed the materializing, you will release it into the surrounding temporal medium. Our purpose here, as you no doubt—" Levney sat up on his couch and snapped his fingers peremptorily. "I to build the tiny time machine in the secret lab under the helicopter Leisurely, he unzipped the richly embroidered garment that, as the father of two children, he was privileged to wear, and wriggled into first time he had seen it, since he'd been helping to build the device If his great-grandfather had not volunteered for the earliest time-travel experiments way back in the nineteen-seventies, back even before the Epidemic, it would never have been discovered that he and No, if his great-grandfather had not demonstrated long ago his unique capacity for remaining conscious during time travel, Mac Albin would probably be a biologist today like almost everyone else on Earth, laboriously working out dreary gene problems instead of embarking on the greatest adventure Man had known to date. Even if he didn't come back, he had at last found a socially useful escape from genetic responsibility to humanity in general and his own family in particular. This was a damn good job and he was lucky. Albin and Honek watched him stuff several sheets of paper into a small him. "And you blacked out after a fifteen-second temporal displacement. So I'm the only chance, the only way to stop the human race from dwindling and dwindling till it hits absolute zero, like that fat old Albin turned it around curiously. "How?" machine and you're the operator, but I'm the theoretical man in this research team. It's my job to look for trouble. So, just in case, I wrote a brief history of the world from the time the missile exploded The small fat man exasperatedly hit the side of the time machine with a well-cushioned palm. "You know better. There won't be any alternate a moment before you materialize to do your job. That temporal medium in which you'll be traveling is something that exists independent of and autonomous to all possible futures. It's my hunch that something that's immersed in it will not be altered by a new time sequence." recognize that simple fact. I know that if anything unexpected pops up, anything we didn't foresee, I'm supposed to come scuttling back and ask for advice." He twisted around, reaching overhead for the lever which activated the forces that drove the time machine. It was strange, Max Alben reflected, that this time travel business, he had been told. There must be some complicated scientific explanation for it, he decided—and that would make it none of his business. Better to the eighteenth, the day of the infamous Guided Missile Experiment. Carefully, carefully, like a man handling a strange bomb made on a strange planet, he watched the center gauge until the needle came to rest against the thin etched line that indicated the exactly crucial All he had to do now was materialize in the right spot, flash out and pull the red switch toward him. Then his well-paid assignment would be done. time machine and tossed it into the gray murk. A solid object floating he opened it, hoping to find something valuable. Nothing but a few slowly, very slowly, for the manuscript was full of a lot of long and complicated words, like a letter from one bookworm scientist to another. time, having caught it from the children of the fishing town, among Strict eugenic control was instituted by the Security Council of the United Nations so that fertile men and women would not be wasted upon non-fertile mates. Fertility was the most important avenue to social of the Epidemic, the birth rate had been moving further and further behind the death rate. In another century.... That was why a desperate and secret attempt to alter the past was being made. This kind of world was evidently impossible. It was odd, Mac Albin reflected, that these temporal journeys, which induced coma in everyone who tried it, only made him feel slightly If he returned. All around the time machine, there was a soupy gray murk in which objects were hinted at rather than stated definitely. It reminded him through time to the eighteenth, the day of the infamous Guided Missile Experiment. Carefully, carefully, like an obstetrician supervising surgical robots at an unusually difficult birth, he watched the where it was. All he had to do now was materialize in the right spot, flash out and He paused and tapped at his sleek chin. He was supposed to do something a second before materialization. Yes, that nervous theoretician, Bob Skeat, had given him a last suggestion. of the time machine and dropped it into the gray murk. A solid object to read it rapidly, very rapidly, as if it were a newly published paper on neutrinos. Besides, the manuscript was written with almost painful even the black market kings, had all warned him not to go ahead with his instructions if anything unusual turned up. That was an awful lot of power to disobey: he knew he should return with this new information and let better minds work on it. the sensation of power. He materialized the time machine around the green instrument panel, sweating a bit at the sight of the roomful of military figures, despite the technicians' reassurances that all this would be happening too fast to be visible. He saw the single red switch pointing upward on the instrument panel. The switch that controlled the course of the missile. Now! Now to make a halfway decent world! information and have all three of them kick it around. But what would they be able to tell him, they with their blissful adjustment to their thoroughly blueprinted lives? They, at least, had tired to the tip of his uncalloused fingers, tired to the recesses of his unused muscles. He was tired of having to undertake a simple adventure like a thief in the night. duped by the technicians into permitting the experiment they had not grasped the idea that an alternate time track would mean their own non-existence. This other world had its troubles, but it was certainly a livelier how he felt: his world was drowsily moribund this alternate was starving but managing to flail away at destiny. It a chance. Albin decided that he was experiencing renunciation and felt proud. He materialized the time machine around the green instrument panel, disregarding the roomful of military figures since he knew they could

<question>:
What was the purpose of the object given to Alben before he time travelled?

<options>:
A It held the machine on pause in 1976 so he could gather his courage and prepare to execute his orders
B It was a time capsule of objects to show the people in the past
C It was a weapon to be used only if absolutely necessary
D It was a record of events to help him remain oriented as to what his timeline was

<answer>:

D