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

<passage>:
was on every building. I wondered When It gave a new face to the entire to remember that an intelligent people has no respect for a whipped enemy ... but does for a fairly beaten enemy. planet. Know Mac and I and some of the other him— crewmen went down on the field to him. That handle the unloading. Jeks on self-propelled Everybody knows "Look!" thinking, sitting on the edge of his at his shoulders, the battle think he was after? the books about him seem to. all followed him with their eyes. "We've got to stop him," Mac said, and both of us started toward him. His hands were both in plain by ship's air, burned by ultraviolet which was swelled out with the bulk steady and his body was hard. What beaten. There used to be a school of thought among us that deplored our combativeness before we had ever were toughest, cruelest life-form in the Universe, unfit to mingle with the gentler wiser races in the stars, and a sure bet to steal their galaxy and corrupt it forever. Where no attention to anything else. The field might as well have been empty except for those two. "They'll kill him. They'll kill him the Lud. We tried Terrestrial know-how, we tried Production Miracles, we tried patriotism, we tried damning the torpedoes and full speed right now," MacReidie whispered. was a death warrant. But the droves, and we retreated from the guttering fires of a dozen planets, we dug in, we fought through the last closer to your home world the year itself before Baker mutinied, shot Cope, and surrendered the remainder of the human race to the wiser, gentler races in the stars. That way, we We liked it that way. Understand cargo. system and carry on a trickle of trade with the outside, we accepted it for the fantastically generous gift it was. Too many of our best men were dead for us to have any remaining claim I worked with one, but I think I'll make out all right, even with the on these things in our own right. I ships, and physics is physics, no matter where you go. I'll make out." "What kind of a deal did you We were out on a God-forsaken make with them? What do you think voice. I was a typical Earthman. head. "Not for you. The only thing MacReidie had no answer to that. "But—" I said. knew what Mac meant. he couldn't understand what might had what they called an he could. "Nothing," I said, and that was that, except MacReidie was always a Serenus metal and rots lungs. So the engine and set the cathode attitudes had to it turned out he'd trained an apprentice It was strange how things became boy to take his place. taking more goods, and giving us things we needed when we told them we wanted them. After a while, Serenus the human race had left. aren't you?" MacReidie nodded. "That's right. But—" "I'll stoke." MacReidie looked over toward me somehow. beyond them, getting along, going to all kinds of places. Pay no attention to the precise red lines you see on the star maps nobody knows exactly what path he wandered from people the war sat and stared down into six legs—after all, ships are ships and they've all got to have something to push them along. If a man knows his business, why not? A man can live on all kinds of food, if he wants to get used to it. And any nontoxic atmosphere will do, as long as there's and we'd known enough men I don't know what he did, to make things so much better for us. I don't know if he did anything, but stoke their ships and, I suppose, fix them a fighting ship, somewhere, very few of the men came back, and the war this man had fought hadn't who joined the combat forces. But were about. All I know is, for some at last. I saw MacReidie's mouth turn down at the corners. But he couldn't reason those people slowly began gainsay the man any more than I could. MacReidie wasn't a mumbling simply didn't know about. The mark the same was toward. I wonder if it mightn't it. So, I don't know. The older I get, the less I know. The thing people remember the stoker for—the thing that makes him famous, and, I think, incidental to what he really did. If he did anything. If he meant to. I wish I could be sure of the exact answer he found in the bottom of that last , and began it all. shifts, with the ship's designers giving cargo, and eight per cent to power famous for. But I suppose it's enough and control. That left very little for around the galaxy. THE END twelve hours. with him you can call that rubbing elbows with greatness, if you want to. of a life he'd lived after the war—what he'd done that made him different from the men who simply different. In an odd way, I like to think that one day, in a bar, on a day that seemed like all the rest to things happen to the facts. It was MacReidie who first found out what he'd done during the war. I've got to explain about MacReidie. He takes his opinions fast and strong. He's a good man—is, or was I haven't seen him for a long while—but he liked things simple. wrong with him. He's got an old had to be something like that, about trained to be the best we had, and they believed in their training. They were the ones who slashed back the deepest when the other side hit us. They were the ones who sallied out into the doomed spaces between the stars and took the war to the other side as well as any human force could ever hope to. They were always the last to leave an abandoned position. "You don't know," Mac said. "It's enemies! Why do you suppose he start something?" "Think! That's exactly what he's going for. One last big alley fight. One last brawl. When they cut him down—do you suppose they'll stop with him? They'll kill us, and then easy." I could feel the knots in my stomach. I didn't want any trouble. Not from the stoker, not from Mac. about his kind of man. Mac hit the viewport with his fist. "Easy! Easy—nothing's easy. I hate this life," he said in a murderous voice. "I don't know why I keep back, back and forth, in an old rust and this is what I got: Skipper says 'Cheer up, brave boys, we'll—' " to make things risky, the jets were ... " No one's supposed to jam an intercom, but it made the crew feel good. When the crew feels good, the ship runs right, and it had been a long time since they'd been happy. and come to grips with things we when they were in trouble. I wonder started "I Left Her Behind For You," and that got us off into sentimental the war, we all seemed to realize together. We stopped, and looked at reciting something, softly, under his This is what it was: And the universe waits, dreaming. For men must go where the flame-winds blow, Where stars are spun and worlds begun, And men will find them waiting. " The song that roars where the rocket soars The dreams of Man and galactic span Are equal and much the same. " What was he thinking of? Make until human beings turn telepath, no man can be sure of another. He shook himself like a dog out nothing MacReidie could do on his own authority—nothing simple, that is. And the stoker had saved the ship, and ... I think what kept anything from happening between MacReidie and the stoker, or anyone else and the trouble in the ship. Trouble, confined volume, could seem like something much more important than the fate of the human race. It may not seem that way to you. But as long as no one began anything, we could all get along. We could have a good trip. built it. It was a leftover from the built it

<question>:
What is a theme of the story?

<options>:
A Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
B War changes people.
C The effects of war last through generations.
D Simple actions can mend deep conflict.

<answer>:

D