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

<passage>:
"Now you be careful, Ferdinand," Sis called after me as she opened a but they were only pictures. Nothing that gave the feel of great empty space like I'd read about in The Boy Rocketeers , no portholes, no visiplates, nothing. case of emergency. I looked for the important things. not permitted past this point!" A big sign in red. existed in the Universe. There wasn't anyone on the deck, as far as I could see. And this But I thought of what Sis would say and I turned around obediently. Then I saw the big red sign again. "Passengers not permitted—" Well! Didn't I know from my civics class that only women could be Earth Citizens these days? Sure, ever since the Male Desuffrage Act. And didn't I know that you had to be a citizen of a planet in order to get an interplanetary passport? Sis had explained it all to me in the careful, patient way she always talks politics and things like that to men. "Technically, Ferdinand, I'm the only passenger in our family. You can't be one, because, not being a citizen, you can't acquire an Earth Passport. However, you'll be going to Venus on the strength of this clause—'Miss Evelyn Sparling and all dependent male members of family, this number not to exceed the registered quota of sub-regulations pertaining'—and so on. I want you to understand these matters, so that married. If it were, Sis and three hundred other pretty girls like her wouldn't be on their way to Venus to hook husbands. Still, if I wasn't a passenger, the sign didn't have anything to do that , but at least it was an argument I could use if it ever came up. So I broke the law. knew must be the door. But I couldn't see any knobs or switches to open key—might as well see if that's it, I figured. myself staring up the muzzle of a highly polished blaster and into the cold blue eyes of the biggest man I'd ever seen. He was wearing a one-piece suit made of some scaly green stuff that looked hard and soft at the same time. His boots were made of it too, and so was the hood hanging down his back. And his face was brown. Not just ordinary tan, you understand, but the every man I'd ever known had his hair cropped in the fashionable soup-bowl style. I was staring at his hair, almost forgetting about the blaster which I knew it was against the law for him to have at all, Just coldness. Maybe it was the kind of clothes he was wearing that did leather, crossed his arms on his chest and began to study me. I grunted I held out my hand the way Sis had taught me. "My name is Ferdinand boss-minded sister." "I'm not a dryleg," I told him proudly. " We're from Undersea." " Dryhorn , I said, not dryleg. And what's Undersea?" "Well, in Undersea we called foreigners and newcomers drylegs. Just planets, Sis says, until by now even if a woman can scrounge a personal husband, he's not much to boast about." The stranger nodded violently. "Not on Earth, he isn't. Those busybody anura make sure of that. What a place! Suffering gridniks, I had a bellyful!" He told me about it. Women were scarce on Venus, and he hadn't been able to find any who were willing to come out to his lonely little islands school used to say. The moment he landed on Earth he was in trouble. He didn't know he had to register at a government-operated hotel for transient males he threw a bartender through a thick plastic window for saying something resisted arrest, resulting in three hospitalized policemen, but he rest because I was a foreigner and uneducated." His eyes grew dark for a moment. He chuckled again. "But I wasn't going to serve all those fancy little prison sentences. Forcible Citizenship Indoctrination, they call it? Shook the dead-dry dust of the misbegotten, God forsaken My pockets were folded from the fines, and the paddlefeet were looking for me so close I didn't dare radio for more munit. So I stowed away." For a moment, I didn't understand him. When I did, I was almost ill. "Y-you mean," I choked, "th-that you're b-breaking the law right now? And I'm with you while you're doing it?" He leaned over the edge of the bunk and stared at me very seriously. After a moment of sober reflection, I nodded. "You're right. I've also become a male outside the law. We're in this together." He guffawed. Then he sat up and began cleaning his blaster. I found that, Mr. Butt?" "Butt. Just plain Butt to you, Ford." He frowned and sighted at the light globe. "No more'n twelve—not counting five government paddlefeet, of course. I'm a peaceable planter. Way I figure it, Trouble was, he was a special kind of farmer. Ordinary fruit would have been pretty easy to sneak into my pockets at meals. I even found a way to handle the kelp and giant watercress Mr. Brown liked, but things matter what, he would never let me hold it. swivel chair he'd vacated and tried to answer his questions. But there notes even, and asked enough questions to make the perspiring purser really work in those orientation periods. "I am very sorry, Miss Sparling," he said with pretty heavy sarcasm, "but I cannot remember any of the agricultural products of the Macro Continent. Since the human population is well below one per thousand square miles, it can readily be understood that the quantity of tilled soil, land or sub-surface, is so small that—Wait, I remember "Pardon me, sir," I broke in, "but doesn't dunging island and the peninsula didn't meet for most of the year?" The purser nodded slowly. "I forgot," he admitted. "Sorry, ladies, but the boy's right. Please make the correction in your notes." Agent—" "Paddlefoot," I sneered. "They're not!" "Not what?" "Riffraff," I had to answer, knowing I was getting in deeper all the time and not being able to help it. I mustn't give Mr. Brown away! , Ferdinand, what evil, criminal male is "What is this picture of me doing in your pocket, Ferdinand?" A trap seemed to be hinging noisily into place. "One of the passengers them that curious about my appearance. Ferdinand, it's a man who has in their ancient, bloody ways. Ferdinand, who has been perverting that "Nobody! Nobody! " "Ferdinand, there's no point in lying! I demand—" "I told you, Sis. I told you! And don't call me Ferdinand. Call me Now, you listen to me, Ferdinand...." miserably. Besides, she was a girl. All the same, I wouldn't get Mr. Butt Lee Brown into trouble if I could door. I tried to catch his eye so I could give him some kind of hint or class, "you realize that you are not only committing the political intended for the personnel of this ship solely in emergency?" He opened his mouth to its maximum width and raised an enormous hand. Then he let the air out and dropped his arm. "Needed nothing. Everyone wanted peace. Earth is a weary old world." "Yes," she said bitterly. "You had this boy steal fresh fruit for you. I suppose you didn't know that under space regulations that makes him equally guilty?" "No, Sis, he didn't," I was beginning to argue. "All he wanted—" "Sure I knew. Also know that if I'm picked up as a stowaway, I'll be sent back to Earth to serve out those fancy little sentences." "Well, you're guilty of them, aren't you?"

<question>:
Why did Ferdinand think the sign did not apply to him?

<options>:
A He had special permission
B He was a stowaway
C He was a child
D He wasn't officially on the manifest

<answer>:

D