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

<passage>:
the human race. It had to be all or nothing ... with one man doing every bit of scoring! Niobe—a perfect name for this wet little world. The Bureau of funny thing about it was that they hadn't picked it in the first place. Niobe was the native word for Earth, or perhaps "the world" would be a more accurate definition. It was a coincidence, of course, but the planet and its mythological Greek namesake had much in common. Niobe, like Niobe, was all tears—a world of rain falling endlessly to the sea. Trekking on Niobe was an amphibious operation unless these were no worse than those of Earth, but a half dozen species were deadly. The first bite sensitized. The second killed—anaphylactic He looked at Kron squatting beside the trail and envied him. It was too bad that Earthmen weren't as naturally repellent to insects as the dominant native life. Like all Niobians, the native guide wore no clothing—ideal garb for a climate like this. His white, hairless hide, with its faint sheen of oil, was beautifully water-repellent. Kron, Lanceford reflected, was a good example of the manner in which Nature adapts the humanoid form for survival on different worlds. Like the dominant species on every intelligent planet in the explored galaxy, he was an erect, bipedal, mammalian being with hands that possessed an opposable thumb. Insofar as that general description went, Kron resembled humanity—but there were differences. Squatting, the peculiar shape of Kron's torso and the odd flexibility of his limbs were not apparent. One had the tendency to overlook the narrow-shouldered, cylindrical body and the elongated tarsal and carpal bones that gave his limbs four major articulations rather than the human three, and to concentrate upon the utterly alien head. doglike head with tiny ears lying close against the hairless, dome-shaped cranium. Slitlike nostrils, equipped with sphincter muscles like those of a terrestrial seal, argued an originally aquatic environment, and the large intelligent eyes set forward in the skull to give binocular vision, together with the sharp white carnassial teeth and pointed canines, indicated a carnivorous ancestry. But the modern Niobians, although excellent swimmers, were land dwellers and ate anything. things they apparently enjoyed. Tastes differed—enormously so between Earthmen and Niobians. There was no doubt that the native was intelligent, yet he, like the rest of his race, was a technological moron. It was strange that a race which had a well-developed philosophy and an amazing comprehension of semantics could be so backward in mechanics. Even the simpler of the BEE's mechanisms left the natives confused. It was possible that they level with that of the human, although there was better than a foot difference in their heights. turned on every faucet and the sheets of rain that fell during the day changed abruptly into a deluge. Even the semi-aquatic natives didn't like to get caught away from shelter during the night. Niobian sliding easily over the surface of the mud, the Earthman him even before his eyes that the house was occupied. The natives, he thought wryly, must be born with no sense of smell, otherwise they'd perish from sheer propinquity. One could never honestly say that and, after a single eye-filling stare, turned back again. Niobians were almost painfully polite. Although Earthmen were still enough of a curiosity to draw attention, one searching look was all their customs allowed. Thereafter, they minded their own business. In some ways, Lanceford reflected, native customs had undeniable merit. A native meal was something he would prefer to avoid. His digestive system could handle the unsavory mess, but his taste buds shrank from the forthcoming assault. What the natives classed as a delicate and elusive flavor was sheer torture to an Earthman. Possibly there was some connection between their inefficient olfactory apparatus and their odd ideas of flavor, but whatever the physical explanation might be, it didn't affect the fact that eating native Niobians eyed the reeking semi-solid eagerly. No meal on Niobe was could assimilate relatively untasty sorat should refuse the far greater delicacy of vorkum. But it was a known fact that the ways of Earthmen The Bureau of Extraterrestrial Exploration had discovered Niobe barely live and work on Niobe without having to hide beneath domes or behind For Niobe was a made to order herbarium for a swampland plant called It was the source of a complex of alkaloids known as gerontin, and gerontin had the property of tripling or quadrupling the normal life span of mammals. right conditions existed in very few places in the explored galaxy. Despite the fact that most life is based on carbon, oxygen and water, the Confederation are semi-arid, with the outstanding exceptions of Terra and Lyrane. But these two worlds were the seats of human and humanoid power for so long that all of their swampland had been drained and reclaimed centuries ago. The result was that nobody was happy until Niobe was discovered. considerable grumbling. In the nick of time, Niobe appeared upon the scene, and Niobe had environment in abundance! spurred on by the people who composed it. The exploration of Niobe error scheme—an error, it looked like now. Seemed rather silly—a Class VII civilization using techniques that were old during the Dark Ages before the Atomic Revolution, sending foot parties to explore a world in the chance that they might discover something that the search mechs missed—anything that would shorten the their range, limited at best, was practically nonexistent on a planet that literally seemed to be one entire "dead spot." A fixed-frequency people who were incautious or inexperienced, but he had never seen it among the aliens. Surprisingly, the effects were the same—the livid swellings, the gasping breath, the pain. Strange how these foreigners reacted like his own people. He scratched his head and pulled thoughtfully at one of his short ears. his doglike face. Tolerance was a custom hallowed by ages of practice. It went to extremes—even with life at stake, a person's wishes and beliefs must be respected. wishes, which didn't include a request for help, but merely to get his pack back to the others in their glass dome. It was astonishing that such an obviously intelligent species should have so little flexibility. They didn't understand the first principles of adaptation. Always and forever, they held to their own ways, trying with insensate stubbornness to mold nature to their will—and when nature overcome their artificial defenses, they died, stubborn, unregenerate, inflexible to the end. They were odd, these humans—odd and a little frightening. This was ridiculous. "Hell, no! Our only design for living is to stay alive, particularly on jobs like this one. We don't wear these suits and repellent because we like to. We do it to stay alive. If we Kron had given him apparently had some anesthetic properties. He felt dimly grateful, even though the primitive native nostrum would probably do no good other than to ease the pain. its lack, of bewildered admiration for the grim persistence of the alien Earthmen, mixed with a wondering curiosity about what kept them here—what the true reasons were for their death-defying persistence and stubbornness—of an ironic native paraphrase for the Terran saying, "Every man to his own taste," and a profound speculation upon what fruits might occur from true understanding between his own race and the discussion and thought—a decision of which every Niobian was aware and with which most Niobians agreed.

<question>:
What was the narrator’s assessment of the life on Niobe compared to the humans of Earth?

<options>:
A They were less able to grasp technical knowledge, but looked like humans of Earth in every other way
B They were remarkably similar in intelligence and form
C They were simple and unlikely to survive for long
D They had a form different than humans that was extremely well adapted to their environment

<answer>:

D