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

<passage>:
[115] THE HILLS OF HOME birch and willow, limp in the evening quiet, and the taste of smouldering leaves.... It wasn’t the Russian River. It was the Sacred Iss. The sun had touched the gem-encrusted cliffs by the shores of the Lost Sea of Korus and had vanished, leaving only the stillness of the dusk and the lonely cry of Roost and Patches and Seventh Heaven, but to Kimmy it was the hated cry of the Father of Therns calling the dreadful Plant Men to their feast of victims borne into [116] this Valley Dor by the mysterious Iss. Kimmy shifted the heavy Martian pistol into his left hand and checked much stranger. He stood up and opened the window to look out into the desert night. Overhead the stars were brilliant and cold. Mars gleamed russet-colored against the sable sky. He smiled, remembering again. So an easy path and what was coming up now was the hardest part. The goddam psychs were the toughest, always wanting him to bug out on the deal “You’re a lonely man, Colonel Kimball——” How could you sit there with pentothal in your veins and wires running out of your head and tell them about the still waters of Korus, or the pennons flying from the twin towers of Greater Helium or the way the Kimball snapped on a light and looked at his watch. 0310. Zero minus one attack the white Therns and their Plant Men. For a moment, Kimmy felt a thrill of apprehension. The deepening the phonograph was very, very faint. Above him, the great vault of the sky was changing from pink to gray to dusty blue. A bright star was breaking through the curtain of fading light. He knew it was Venus, the Evening Star. But let it be Earth, he thought. And instead of white, let it be the color of an emerald. He paused in midstream, letting the warm water riffle around his feet. Looking up at the green beacon of his home planet, he thought: I’ve left all that behind me. It was never really what I wanted. Mars is where I belong. With my friends, Tars Tarkas the great Green Jeddak, and Carter, the Warlord, and all the beautiful brave people. The phonograph sang with Vallee’s voice: “Cradle me where southern skies can watch me with a million eyes——” brought to this cursed valley. “Sing me to sleep, lullaby of the leaves”—the phonograph Kimball stood now in the bright glare of the briefing shack, a strange silence, studying the red figure of the man who was to ride the rocket. They were thinking: Why him? Out of all the scores of Kimball listened, only half aware of what was being said. He watched the On the dais nearby, listening to the PRO, but watching Kimball, sat Steinhart, the team analyst. Kimball returned his steady gaze thinking: They start out burning with desire to cure the human mind and end with Kimball looked around the room at the pale faces, the open mouths. What have I to do with you now, he thought? Outside, the winter night lay cold and still over the Base. Floodlights spilled brilliance over the dunes and the scrubby earth, high fences command car with Kimball. Chance or design? Kimball wondered. The Kimball thought: He’s pale skinned and very blond. What is it that he Kimball had had to give them up because of the flight. Kimball caught [119] said. “It’s just some of the things——” Kimball said: “I talked too much.” Kimball shrugged. “It didn’t work. She was a fine girl—but she They rode in silence, across the dark Base, between the concrete sheds and the wooden barracks. Overhead, the stars like dust across the sky. Kimball, swathed in plastic, a fantastic figure not of earth, watched them wheel across the clear, deep night. “What will you do?” “You know the answers as well as I,” the Colonel said impatiently. “Set up the camp and wait for the next rocket. If it comes.” “In two years.” “In two years,” the plastic figure said. Didn’t he know that it didn’t matter? “Yes?” Disinterest in his voice now, Steinhart noted clinically. Natural under the circumstances? Or neurosis building up already? course. You know there’s no such thing as a normal human being. We all have tendencies toward one or more types of psychoses. In your case the Kimball turned to regard the psych coolly . “What’s reality, Steinhart? Do you know?” The analyst flushed. “No.” child.” [120] Kimball was watching the sky again. Steinhart felt futile and out of his depth. “We know so little about the psychology of space-flight, Kim——” Silence. The rumble of the tires on the packed sand of the road, the murmur of the command car’s engine, spinning oilily, and lit by tiny finally. “Happy to be the first man to try for the planets——” Kimball nodded absently, wishing the man would be quiet. Mars, a dull rusty point of light low on the horizon, seemed to beckon. They topped the last hillock and dropped down into the lighted bowl of the launching site. The rocket towered, winged and monstrously checkered in white and orange, against the first flickerings of the false dawn. “Where is that little brat, anyway?” shifting light of the two moons. [121] “Kimmmm—eeee Mom’s going to be mad at you! Answer us!” He walked slowly out of the willows, stumbling a little over the rocks. He lay like an embryo in the viscera of the ship, protected and quite alone. The plastic sac contained him, fed him and the rocket, silent now, coursed through the airless deep like a questing thought. Time was measured by the ticking of the telemeters and the timers, but Kimball hills and a sky that burned deep blue through the long, long days and canals, clear and still. A land that he knew somehow never was, but Mars. And Steinhart: “ What is reality, Kimmy? ” The hours stretched into days, the days into months. Time wasn’t. Time was a deep night and a starshot void. And dreams. He awoke seldom. His tasks were simple. The plastic sac and the tender care of the ship were more real than the routine jobs of telemetering information back to the Base across the empty miles, across the rim of the world. He dreamed of his wife. “ You don’t live here, Kim. ” She was right, of course. He [122] wasn’t of earth. Never had been. My love is in the sky, he thought, filled with an immense satisfaction. And time slipped by, the weeks into months the sun dwindled and earth was gone. All around him lay the stunning star-dusted night. He lay curled in the plastic womb when the ship turned. He awoke There was skill in his hands. He righted the rocket, balanced it. Began the tricky task of landing. It took all of his talent, all of his training. Ponderously, the ship settled into the iron sand slowly, the internal fires died. Kimball stood in the control room, his heart pounding. Slowly, the ports unreal, a painting of unworldly quiet and desolation. What is reality, Kimmy? Steinhart was right, he thought vaguely. A tear streaked his cheek. He was something moving on the plain. fluttering pennons. Huge golden chariots with scythes flashing on the circling hubs and armored giants, the figments of a long remembered dream—— He dropped to the sand and dug his hands into the dry powdery soil. He The voice was thin and distant on the icy wind. Kimball knew that voice. or die. They were the hills of home. Transcriber’s Note and Errata This etext was produced from “Future Science Fiction” No. 30 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.

<question>:
What is Kimball's home planet?

<options>:
A Unknown
B Venus
C Mars
D Earth

<answer>:

D