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

<passage>:
less than the crew—all their lives hung upon it! hearing it for the first time. The alien stood between us and the ship. It was a great pot-bellied lizard as tall as a man. Its sound came from a flat, vibrating beaver tail. Others of its kind were coming into view behind it. "Stand your ground," I warned the others thickly. "They may be dangerous." Quade sat up on our crisscross litter of arms. "Aliens can't be hostile. Ethnic impossibility. I'll show you." Quade was delirious and we were drunk. He got away from us and jogged "Transphasia, that's what it is," Ordinary Spaceman Quade stated with As we lumbered toward them, the aliens fell back in a solid line except for the first curious-looking one. Quade got there ahead of us and made a grab. The creature rose into the air with a screaming vibration of his tail and landed on top of him, flattening him instantly. "Sssh, men," Nagurski said. "Leave it to me. I'll surround him." it to the wrong receptive areas. Besides the human brain, it also effects electronic equipment, like radar and television." planetary gravitational fields. On this planet, that blank kinescope may mean our Big Brother kites were knocked down by hostile natives." "You are plain wrong, Captain. Traditionally, alien races never interfere with our explorations. Generally, they are so alien to us they can't even recognize our existence." "I'd like to," Nagurski admitted, "but the other beasts won't let us get past their circle." It was true. The aliens formed a ring around us, and each time a bouncing boy hit the line, he only bounced back on top of us. everything else, even your own life." "Just a minute, Captain. I've never been 'busted.' In the Exploration Service, we regard Ordinary Spaceman as our highest rank. With my hazard pay, I get more hard cash than The others were lying around me quietly, passed out, knocked out, or taking cover. The ring of aliens drew in about us, closer, tighter, as the bouncer sat on his haunches and waited for us to move. "Feeling better?" I asked Quade in the infirmary. spaceship where they belong. We shouldn't risk losing them and "Are you settling for a primary exploration?" "No. I think I had the right idea on your rescue party. You have to meet and fight a planet on its own terms. Fighting confused sounds and tastes with music and wine was crude, but it was on the right track. Out there, we understood language because we were familiar with alien languages changed to other sense mediums by cybernetic translators. Using the translator, we can learn to recognize all confused data as first orbital ships. "Quade," I said, "there's only one way for us to find out which of us is right about the cause of our scanning blackout." under close conditions, from the time of the ancient submarines and the is less painful and more efficient." Quade squirmed. "Yes, sir. One thing, sir—I don't understand how you got me away from those aliens." "The aliens were trying to help. They knew something was wrong and they were prodding and probing. When the first tractor pulled up and the men got out, they seemed to realize our own people could help us easier "But why should they want to help us?" Quade demanded suspiciously. "I think it's like Nagurski's dog. The dog came to him when it wanted somebody to own it, protect it, feed it, love it. These aliens want Earthmen to colonize the planet. We came here, you see, same as the dog came to Nagurski." "Well, I've learned one thing from all of this," Quade said. "I've been Captain?" "I'm swallowing no words until I find out precisely how they taste electrogravitational disturbance of incoming sense data, rechanneling reference, the solid reality of the spaceship. But out here, where all exploration party, you know, sir." "That's important, Captain?" pressure suit. "What do you know all about, Nagurski? Dogs? Spacemen? Women? Transphasia?" "Did your crew voluntarily elect you as their leader?" "Of course they did, Gav. I'm an old hand at controlling crews." "Then why are you First Officer under me now?" He blinked, then decided to laugh. "I've been in space a good many you a thing, Nagurski. Your trust of these damn-fool spacemen is why you are no longer a captain. You can't trust anything out here in space, much less human nature. Even I know that much!" crew is concerned, Ordinary Spaceman Quade is the best man on this getting our exploration parties through this transphasia?" "There's only one idea for that," said Quade, ducking his long head and stepping through the connecting hatch. "With the Captain's permission...." with the spaceship. Parties are strung out on guide line, like we were, know." "What else can we do, Captain?" Nagurski asked puzzledly. "You've said that the spaceship is our only protection from "Then," I told them, "we will have to start tearing apart this ship." Sergeant-Major Hoffman and his team were doing a good job of ripping out the side of the afterhold. Through the portal I could see the "Cannibalizing is dangerous." Nagurski put his pipe in his teeth and shook his head disapprovingly. "Spaceships have parts as interchangeable as Erector sets. We can take apart the tractors and put our ship back together again after we complete the survey." spaceship." why don't you go back to testing cosmic bomb shelters?" Nagurski flushed. "Look here, Captain, you are being too damned cautious. There is a way one handles the survey of a planet like this, you are risking more than a few men—you risk the whole mission in would be doing it wrong." "You know nothing about space, Captain! You have to trust us ." "I would," I answered levelly. "Then you'll be interested to hear that Spaceman Quade took a suit and a cartographer unit. He's out there somewhere, alone." planet with a terrifying phenomenon, but I'd had enough evidence to see that space exploration made a man a reckless fool by doing things on "Something strange about the trance, Captain," Farley said darkly. "Any spaceman can tell you that. Things we don't understand." "I'm talking about something we do understand— sound spaceship. There isn't time for that. We will have to live with the sound." "What do you think he's going to hear out there, Captain? We'd like to Asleep in the Cradle of the Deep can compensate for high-pitched the middle of a mission. It's not done. What reason can you have?" "To sharpen their taste and olfactory senses. We can turn up or block out sound. We can use radar to extend our sight, but the Space Service hasn't yet developed anything to make spacemen taste or smell better." "They are going to smell like a herd of winos," Farley said. "I don't like to think how they would taste." sensory data under transphasia, wine may help us to see where we are going." "Yes, sir," Farley said obediently. "I'll give spacemen a few quarts of "This is serious business. I must ask whoever has been giggling on this channel to shut up. Pardon me, Captain. You "Take a good look around, boys," I said. "What do you see?" "Quail," Nagurski replied. "That's what I see." "You," I said carefully, "have been in space a long get him back to the spaceship fast. I've seen this kind of thing before with transphasia. His body cooled down because of the screaming

<question>:
What kind of mission does the crew appear to be sent on?

<options>:
A Mapping planets, collecting precious stones
B Searching for water
C Testing colonization of distant planets by cannibalizing parts from spaceships
D Capturing aliens

<answer>:

A