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

<passage>:
introductions were over. She was still BY JAMES BLISH alert out!" diving for it—not in time, anyhow. Remember when the Navy lost a barge-load of shells in the harbor, laid an egg in New Ludmilla back in '52? They scrabbled for them for a year and never pulled up a one along the shore it shouldn't bang said object, or shake it either. We're better equipped than the Navy was York harbor, Abner Longmans ("One-Shot") Braun was in the city then—but we're working against a "It's just a lump of something, "I see." I thought about it a moment. Dr. Hadamard. Can't even tell its that if it found anything funny-looking shape—it's buried too deeply in the Ludmilla really the hook, and winding up with a sheaf of background facts to feed into the computer for Next Time. It's first came through. Harry Anderton, the Harbor Defense chief, called us at 0830 Friday to take on the job of identifying the egg Illustrated by van Dongen On the day that the Polish freighter never going to get the answer by How did you find out about this egg Ludmilla egg was buried among a lot of other crates in the dump-cell of the I'll be quick because we need speed now. A Polish ship has dropped hold—" "What's a dump cell?" something out in the harbor. old laundry. Obviously we've got to find out which—and we want up unexpectedly." We don't know what it is. It may be a hell-bomb, or it may be just somebody's "It's a sea lock for getting rid of dangerous cargo. The bottom of it opens right to Davy Jones. Standard fitting for ships carrying explosives, radioactives, anything that might act dump-cell floor, set to drop the egg when the ship came up the river. That worked fine, but the automatic "Well, there was a timer on the Ludmilla the rest of the ship from being flooded while the cell's open, didn't. At least they didn't do a thorough job. Harbor Patrol found the dump-cell open, they called us in." on the mike to the divers. She was Ludmilla saying: "What does it look like?" laid an egg or not." "That's what I keep trying to explain to you, Dr. Harris. We don't know what she dropped and we haven't any way of finding out. It could be a bomb—it could be anything. We're sweating everybody on board the ship now, but it's my guess that none of them know anything fuse that didn't break with the impact. Or a gyroscopic fuse. Stick a stethoscope on it and see if you pick the whole procedure was designed to "You've got divers down?" "Sure, but—" "We'll worry about the buts from up a ticking or anything that sounds All right, maybe it's got a clockwork "All right, we'll take it," I said. them to pick up whatever else they needed from the tape, and checked the line to the divers' barge. It was already open to the present. "All right," he said. "I told you the truth, Andy. Remember that. So—is it a bomb or ain't it? That's what's up for grabs, right?" I nodded. He closed his eyes. An down my back. Without the eyes, Braun's face was a death mask. The water sounds and the irregular ticking of a Geiger counter ... oing ... Underwater noises, shapeless and characterless. "Hello, out there in the harbor. This is CIA, Harris calling. Come in, please." "All right," he said. "You guys wanted it this way. I say it's a bomb. " He stared at us for a moment more—and of crates, but so far, no egg." into the integrator's mouth. "What's your angle, Peter?" "The ship. I want to see how heavily shielded that dump-cell is." "It isn't shielded at all," Anderton's prove anything. The egg might have carried sufficient shielding in itself. Or maybe the Commies didn't care whether the crew was exposed or not. Or maybe there isn't any egg." that sets it off—" "It won't go off. That's the one thing you can be sure it won't do." squawked. "But Dr. Hadamard, if "Unscrew the cap?" the audio "All that's possible," I admitted. "We're getting plenty of radiation now. Just a minute— Yeah. Dr. Hadamard, it's a bomb, all right. But it hasn't got a fuse. Now how could they have made a fool mistake "What is this?" Anderton demanded. phone down again. "Are you going to duck out just like that? Remember, Dr. Harris, we've got to evacuate the city first of all! No matter whether it's a real egg or not—we can't take the chance on it's not being an egg!" said. It was too good a chance for us to test how our facilities would stand up in a real bomb-drop." "A real drop?" Anderton said. "Are you trying to say that CIA staged this? You ought to be shot, the whole pack of you!" "No, not exactly," I said. "The enemy's responsible for the drop, all right. We got word last month from our man in Gdynia that they were going to do it, and that the bomb would be on board the Ludmilla to miss. We wanted to find out just how long it would take us to figure out the nature of the bomb—which we didn't know in detail—after it was dropped here. So we had our Ludmilla people in Gdynia defuse the thing after it was put on board the ship, but otherwise leave it entirely alone. "Actually, you see, your hunch was We didn't ask you whether or not that object was a live bomb. We asked whether it was a bomb or not. You said it was, and you were right." The expression on Braun's face right on the button as far as it went. put in. "You'll remember we had a deadline on the test, Mr. Braun. Obviously, in a real drop we wouldn't have all the time in the world to figure out what kind of a thing had been dropped. If we had still failed to establish that when the and its individual dock-wallopers. For some reason, he had been amused by the brash youngster who'd barged "So we failed the test," I said. "At one minute short of the deadline, Joan had the divers unscrew the cap. In a real drop that would have resulted in a detonation, if the bomb was real we'd never risk it. That "And that means that you were the only person who did come through, Mr. Braun. If a real bomb-drop ever comes, we're going to have always do. They have to he's sinking to hospitals or something like that. You watch." She had been right had been born—the plainest kind of symbolic suicide: Ludmilla eight and a half million lives riding on it—" That put it up into Braun's normal operating area, all right. The connection was still hazy, but on the Clark Cheyney, Colonel Anderton. "All right," I said. "Go ahead." them, with orders to scorch it over to Braun without stopping to breathe helplessness. Cheyney was bent over a seismograph, echo-sounding for the egg through the river bottom. If that even had a prayer of bulkheads that are supposed to keep through their tubes would have blanked out any possible echo-pip from the egg. screen, which now showed an amorphous black mass, jutting up gone back to work the moment the "Nothing's gotten us anywhere," Anderton interjected harshly. "We don't even know if that's the egg—the whole area is littered with crates. Harris, you've got to let me get that they finally had to warn the public

<question>:
What does it mean for the Ludmilla to lay an egg?

<options>:
A The egg refers to illegal drugs being transported on the ship.
B Stolen goods were smuggled onto the ship.
C An oil spill polluted the ocean.
D An object, likely a bomb, was dropped from the ship into the ocean.

<answer>:

D