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

<passage>:
monstrosity whom Earthly weapons could not touch. hung low, those wispy tendrils of mist, clasping everything in their clinging shelter, destroying dust and germs. Irgi had discovered the mist many years ago, when it was too late to save his kind. He had flung a vast globe of transparent metal above this greatest of invisible beam, the bronze portals slid apart, noiselessly, opening to bands of cobalt that sped outward from the cones. He preened his body chest and torso. Where it touched, a faint tingle lingered the law of nature. It would atrophy, otherwise. "The last planet in our course," he breathed. "Maybe it has the radium!" "Yes," whispered the man beside him, wetting his lips with his tongue. "No use to think of failure. If it hasn't, we'll die ourselves, down there." Radium. And the Plague. It had come on Earth suddenly, had the Plague, back in the first days of space travel, after Quigg, the American research scientist at Cal Tech, discovered a way to lift a rocket ship made the first flight through space, died of cancer. As the years passed to a decade, and the ships of Earth rode to Mars and Venus, it began to be apparent that a lifetime of space travel meant a hideous death. Scientists attributed it to the cosmic rays, for out in space there was no blanketing layer of atmosphere to protect the fleshy tissues of man from their piercing power. It had long been a theory that cosmic rays were related to the birth of new life in the cosmos perhaps they were, said some, the direct cause of life. Thus by causing the unorderly growth of new cells that man called cancer, the cosmic rays were destroying the life they had created. It meant death to travel in space, and only the stupendous fees paid to the young men who believed in a short life and a merry one, kept the ships plying between Mars and Earth and Venus. Lead kept out the cosmic rays, but lead would not stand the terrific speed required to lift a craft free of planetary gravity and an inner coating of lead brought men into port raving with lead poisoning illusions. Cancer cases increased on Earth. It was learned that the virulent form of space cancer, as it was called, was in some peculiar manner, contagious to a certain extent. The alarm spread. Men who voyaged in space were segregated, but the damage had been done. The Plague spread, and ravaged the peoples of three planets. Hospitals were set up, and precious radium used for the fight. But the radium was hard to come by. There was just not enough for the job. A ship was built, the fastest vessel ever made by man. It was designed barge by comparison. And mankind gave it to Valentine Emerson to take it out among the stars to find the precious radium in sufficient quantities to halt the Plague. It had not been easy to find a crew. The three worlds knew the men were going to their doom. It would be a miracle if ever they reached a single planet, if they did not perish of space cancer before their first goal. Carson Nichols, whose wife and children were dying of the heralded cancer. Involuntarily, he shuddered. trap, and bellowed. A hail from the depths of the ship answered him. A floor of black rock, the spacecraft bounced once, twice then lay still. light bathed the interior, turning the men a ghastly hue. Gunn shivered vivid, intense. They could feel its surging power tingling on their desolation. Sunlight glinting on their jagged edges, made harsh "For what? How do we know what they're like? An inhabited planet doesn't mean men. We found that out—several times." "We can hope," said Emerson sharply. "Maybe they have some radium, stored so that our spectroscope couldn't pick it up." The mighty globe that hung over the city glimmered in the morning suns. Beneath it, the white towers and spires of the city reared in alien that is controlling this green beam." A section of the globe slid back, and the spaceship moved through the opening. The globe slipped back and locked after it. transparent window, pressing hard, the skin showing white as his knuckles lifted. He said swiftly, "You guys can stay here if you want, but I'm getting myself a sun-blaster. Two of them. I'm not going to be plastic screen, then straightened abruptly, rigid. "Hey," yelled Nichols excitedly. "It's pure. I mean actually pure. No germs. No dust. Just clean air!" "No germs. No dust. Why—that means there's no disease in this place! "No disease," he whispered, "and every one of us is going to die of cancer." Mussdorf came up through the trap and passed out the sun-blasters. They buckled them around their waists while Mussdorf swung the bolts of the door. He threw it open, and clean air, and faint tendrils of whitish mist came swirling into the ship. "I feel like a kid again on a Spring day back on Earth. You know, with of solar power that sizzled past its bulbous head. As it moved, its tentacled arms and legs slithered out with unthinkable rapidity, fell and wrapped around Mussdorf. was diabolically clever. It held Mussdorf aloft, between itself and Emerson, while its other arms stabbed out at Gunn and Nichols, catching The thing dropped the Earthmen suddenly eyes were caught suddenly by the lumps protruding from their arms and legs, from face and chest. The growth disease! That was bad, but Irgi ship. He had caught a confused, angry murmur on the radiation recorder. Perhaps the metal of the hull had in some manner made his voice audible to them, speeded up the vibrations to twelve or fifteen a second. Then there was the matter of the growth disease. He could eliminate "It's short-circulated their nervous systems for a while, absorbed the electric charges all intelligent beings cast," Irgi said aloud, glad at this chance to exercise his voice. "They won't be able to feel for some disease. Now he beheld the mighty salt mines where naked men swung huge him with a spaceship, reciting the need of radium, the dread of the plague. The thoughts of this Emerson were coming in clearer, as Irgi in sudden interest, flipped over different dials. The unspoken thoughts pouring into his brain through the screen continued. The words he did not understand, but the necessity for radium, and the danger of the growth disease he did. The pictures jumbled, grew chameleonesque— red aura drifted upward from the tabletop, passing through them as if they were mist, rising upwards to dissipate in the air near the ceiling. It woke the others. They too, bellowed and screamed and sobbed, and their arms and legs writhed like wild things in a trap. Damn him! If I ever get loose I'll cut his heart out and make him eat it." "Maybe—maybe he's vivisecting us," moaned Nichols. "With rays or—or something—aagh! I can't stand it!" "Hang on, kid," gritted Emerson, fighting the straps. "I think it's "You know, it's funny—but I feel great. Huh, I must've sweated all the mine convict. I'd have done anything to get out of that boiling hell. I volunteered to go with you for the radium. Me and Gunn. Nichols doesn't count. He came on account of his wife and kids. We were the only two

<question>:
What unexpected characteristic did the sickness experienced by space travelers, caused by cosmic rays, display?

<options>:
A The sickness could be transferred from the space traveler exposed to the cosmic rays to other people on Earth who had not engaged in space travel.
B There was no range of effects. Everyone who traveled in space got cancer and eventually died of it.
C It was easily cured using a medicine usually employed to de-worm livestock.
D Even lead shielding could not prevent the cosmic rays from getting through and causing sickness.

<answer>:

A