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

<passage>:
screamed out to him in a thick, harsh cackle. Yet even as he screamed, the giant disappeared, to be replaced by white-booted feet stomping relentlessly toward him. He awoke still screaming.... A night without darkness passed. Ben lay waiting for Maggie's return, a question already formed in his mind. His fear-borne gaze traveled into the dimly illumined Venusian gin He began to understand. "And your husband needs an astrogator? That's Most of the big room lay obscured behind a shimmering veil of tobacco smoke and the sweet, heavy fumes of Martian Devil's Egg. Here and there, Ben saw moving figures. He could not tell if they were Earthmen, Martians or Venusians. Someone tugged at his greasy coat. He jumped, thinking absurdly that it "Why aren't you with him now?" Ben looked down. a red-skinned marionette with pipestem arms and legs, clad in a torn skivvy shirt and faded blue dungarees. "Venus is getting too civilized. We're moving out and this dome is only "I'm American," Ben muttered. She laughed. "Makes you think of a Biblical character, doesn't it? Jacob's anything but that. And just plain 'Jake' reminds one of a grizzled old uranium prospector and he isn't like that, either." pretty and tres fat. She weigh almost eighty pounds, tres Ben scowled. "What happens if there The boy grabbed his hand. Because Ben could think of no reason for resisting, he followed. They plunged into shifting layers of smoke and through the drone of alcohol-cracked voices. They passed the bar with its line of lean-featured, slit-eyed Ben stiffened. "And that's why you want me for an astrogator." Earthmen—merchant spacemen. marble that jutted up into the semi-darkness like fog-blanketed tombstones. Several times, Ben glimpsed the bulky figures of CO 2 -breathing Venusians, the first he'd ever seen. They were smoky gray, scaly, naked giants, toads in human shape. They stood solitary and motionless, aloof, their green-lidded eyes unblinking. They certainly didn't look like telepaths, as Ben had heard they were, but the thought sent a fresh rivulet of fear down his spine. , Ben told himself. Ben winced. How did this kid know he wanted to sit in the shadows? He listened to the lonely rhythms of the four-piece Martian orchestra. The Martians were fragile, doll-like creatures with heads too large for their spindly bodies. Their long fingers played upon the strings of their cirillas or crawled over the holes of their flutes like spider legs. Their tune was sad. Even when they played an Earth tune, it still seemed a song of old Mars, charged with echoes of lost voices and forgotten grandeur. For an instant, Ben's mind rose above the haunting vision of the dead felt the challenge of new worlds? about forty and he hated spacemen. His body was buried now—probably in the silent gray wastes outside Luna City. But he'd become a kind of invisible Siamese twin, as much a part of Ben as sight in his eyes. Sometimes the image would be shuffling drunkenly beside him, its lips spitting whiskey-slurred curses. Again, its face would be a pop-eyed mask of surprise as Ben's fist been successful. Ben, quietly and moderately, wanted to celebrate. plopped his portly and unsteady posterior on the stool next to him. "Spacemen," he muttered, "are getting like flies. Everywhere, all you see's spacemen." He was a neatly dressed civilian. Ben smiled. "If it weren't for spacemen, you wouldn't be here." "The name's Cobb." The man hiccoughed. "Spacemen in their white monkey suits. They think they're little tin gods. Betcha you think you're a little tin god." He downed a shot of whiskey. Ben stiffened. He was twenty-four and dressed in the white, At the age of five—perhaps in order to dull the memory of his parents' Until this instant, Ben had suppressed his anger. Now, suddenly and Ben knew that he was dead. Then, for a single absurd second, Ben was seized with terror—just as, There were old wives' tales of a group of renegade spacemen who operated from the Solar System's frontiers. The spacemen weren't outlaws. They were misfits, rejectees from the clearing houses on Earth. And whereas no legally recognized ship had ventured past Mars, the souped-up renegade rigs had supposedly hit the asteroids. Their headquarters was Venus. Their leader—a subject of popular and fantastic conjecture in the men's audiozines—was rumored to be a red-bearded giant. So , Ben reflected, name. You can wait for a chance to get to Venus. To hell with your Ben Curtis made it to Venus. voice? Might not the vision of alien worlds and infinite spaceways obscure the dead face? So now he sat searching for a perhaps nonexistent red-bearded giant, and hoping and doubting and fearing, all at once. "This isn't my first night here," Ben lied. "I've been around a while." Ben didn't answer. Ben raised his hand as if to strike the boy. The toothpick of a body melted into the semi-darkness. Minutes passed. There were two more whiskeys. A ceaseless parade of faces broke through the smoky veil that enclosed him—reddish balloon faces, scaly reptilian faces, white-skinned, slit-eyed faces, and occasionally a white, rouged, powdered face. But nowhere was there a face with a red beard. But his picture must have been 'scoped to Venusian visiscreens. A wheel with Ben as their focal point. You idiot! The damned Martian kid! You should have known! wickedness, revealing drab concrete walls and a debris-strewn floor. Eyes blinked and squinted. There were swift, frightened movements and a chorus of angry murmurs. The patrons of the Blast Inn were like tatter-clad occupants of a house whose walls have been ripped away. falling. The white-clad men charged, neuro-clubs upraised. feline stealth to a rear exit. Only the giant Venusians remained undisturbed. They stood unmoving, their staring eyes shifting lazily in Ben's direction. He stumbled forward. They were using deadly neuro-pistols now, not the mildly stunning neuro-clubs. "Anti ... anti ..." The words were as heavy as blobs of mercury forced They wormed down a narrow aisle flanked by booths carved from Venusian shut. But after a while, they opened. His world of darkness gave way to a translucent cloak of mist. A round, featureless shape hovered constantly above him—a face, he supposed. The face was that of a girl probably somewhere between twenty-five and thirty. Her features, devoid of makeup, had an unhealthy-looking pallor, as if she hadn't used a sunlamp for many weeks. Yet, at the same time, her firm slim body suggested a solidity and a strength. Her straight brown hair was combed backward, tight upon her scalp, and "Venus." Her eyes twinkled mischievously. "Because you're a good astrogator." And towering above him was a red-bearded man whose great hands reached down and beckoned to him. Ben crawled through the night on hands and His head rose and turned to the red-bearded man. His pleading voice

<question>:
Why did Ben fear the Venusians?

<options>:
A They stood eerily motionless.
B He had heard they were telepaths.
C They stood silent and unblinking in a eerie manner.
D They were large and scaly and resembled toads.

<answer>:

B