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

<passage>:
dead white behind her oxymask. "What others?" "I never bothered to find The planet itself was tough enough—barren, desolate, forbidding enough to stop the most adventurous and out their names," Ledman desert. That's the only sport I have left—Geig-hunting. Look out there." Death to all Terrans! said casually. "They were die out here on Mars is to little heap of bones lying there, looking oddly bright like you, out on the finish that search-pattern. parched skeletons of Earthmen. Bits of cloth and plastic, Earth needs uranium, honey, and I know you'd never be sands. They were the dried, once oxymasks and suits, still against the redness of the much talk about it we chalked it off as occupational hazards. There had been a pattern of disappearances on the desert. I could think of six, eight names now. None of them had been particularly close sand in the delicate mechanism of the atomic engine. But no Why? What've they ever done to walking on the spongy sand of the Martian desert. We'd been walking a good eight "Because I hate you," he said blandly. "I intend to wipe every last one of you out, one by one." there isn't any uranium in this sector at all. I think we're crazy to keep on searching "Let's at the time of the atomic wars. HEROES there's no sense in arguing with her. I stared ahead at the bleak, desolate wastes of the Martian Mars. Eventually I'll scare you all away." "Just pick us off in the desert?" "Exactly," replied Ledman. "And I have no fears of an armed attack. This place is landscape. Behind us somewhere was the comfort well fortified. I've devoted "Come on, kid. Remember—we're doing this for Earth. years to this. Ever since—ever since I landed here on Mars." "What are you going to do By ROBERT SILVERBERG her. We had wandered fruitlessly over the red sands all hushed all day, except for their constant undercurrent of meaningless noises. Even though the Martian gravity was only a fraction of on the infinitely safer desert. "Do I shock you?" he asked. "I shouldn't—not when I found myself fervently "We don't see them," I snapped. "Well, let me show you. You're on Mars hunting uranium, right? To mine and Earth to keep the atomic engines going. Right?" happy quitting in the middle Mars," Val said irrelevantly. coming to Mars to help in the sad. I could almost feel sorry for you. Almost." "Just what is it you're Earth going. And we'd always had a roving foot, both of us. to come to Mars—the hundreds, injuring thousands more, sterilizing forty miles of Mississippi land—when barren terrain. The geiger kept up a fairly steady click-pattern, but never broke into "Just enough to necessitate the removal of—" he indicated the empty space at his spongy Martian sand and thighs. "So I got off lightly." bury myself. myself, terribly tired. I longed "But why kill us Geigs? Mars, until I recalled that I We had nothing to do with it." away. All quite legal, I assure you. They left me almost a It didn't take much to persuade her. She slid down beside Mars, lost myself, built this Dome, and swore to get even. sprawled out on the sands. uranium on this planet, but enough to keep me in a style to which, unfortunately, I'm Mars after all. But, I reminded Poor kid , I thought. Maybe There's not a great deal of moment she was fast asleep, myself, someone sleeping form, and thought of our warm, comfortable little home on Earth. It wasn't much, but people in love don't need very fancy surroundings. to lie down on the soft, peacefully, a wayward lock of her soft blonde hair trailing it seemed hard to believe that we'd exchanged Earth and all it held for us for the raw, untamed struggle that was Mars. wasn't seriously worried about his threat to wipe out too nightmarish to be real. I all off. No, it wasn't the threat that disturbed me, so much as the whole concept, so every Earthman on Mars? Of all the insane, cockeyed—" Val's quick, worried head-shake Earth that couldn't be broken without much difficulty. So innocent people who've done empty desert. I started to shake Val. But I never finished. It would be nothing, nothing at all to you. That's not sane!" His eyes blazed. "Who are bound in thin, tough, plastic tangle-cord, swathed from chin to boot-bottoms, my fly. It wasn't Martians that had done it. There weren't any Martians, hadn't been for a million years. It was some all but the face area opaque. The oxygen cannisters weren't attached to his back as expected, though. him, and this struck me odd. I thought I knew everyone on sparsely-settled Mars. Somehow I'd missed him. What shocked me most was "No. That's the difference between sane people and insane," I told him. "I'm not going to kill you at all. I'm me, curled up, and in a going to see to it that you're sent back to Earth." "They'll help you on Earth. They'll take all the hatred and out. "I hate all of them." "I know," I said sarcastically. everyone at the Dome." "Quiet up there!" our captor around on Earth for as much as a year after the Sadlerville off for Mars without a moment's hated Earth so much you had to leave." "Why are you telling all why. I wondered why we had ever left Earth. The answer to that came to me quick enough: we had to. this to me?" them to." "You left Earth too quickly," world had been completely rebuilt. The wreckage of New York and Shanghai and London and all the other ruined cities had been hidden by a shining new world of things, virtually robot legs. All the survivors of for fuel. It was an atomic world. Everything: power drills, the Sadlerville Blast were printing presses, typewriters, powered by the inexhaustible energy of the dividing atom. inexhaustible, the supply of nuclei isn't. After three centuries of heavy consumption, the supply failed. The mighty for a moment I almost felt sorry for him, a pathetic legless of events that led Val and me to end up as a madman's prisoners, on Mars. With every source of uranium mined dry on Earth, we had tried other possibilities. All sorts of time you could have been happy, useful on Earth, instead of being holed up here nursing your hatred. You Earth. But you decided to channel everything out as revenge." "I still don't believe it—those picture the sort of dog-eat-dog world we'd revert back to. Millions of starving, freezing humans tooth-and-clawing in it in the useless shell of a great atomic civilization. So, Mars. There's not much uranium on Mars, and it's not easy to find or any cinch to mine. But what little is there, over?" "Yes—human legs aren't out on the face of Mars, combing for its uranium deposits. And here we are, I thought. two hummocks on the desert. Just out of the way enough to escape observation. For a puzzled moment I thought it was our Dome, the but another look told me that this was actually quite near us and fairly small. A one-man Dome, of all things! "Welcome to my home," he a year." "But I'm a murderer!" "That's right. And you'll be wishing I was back out there who hated. The place was spartanly furnished. No chairs, no tape-player, no decoration of any been out on the desert. I realized now that I had been driving her mercilessly—me, with sort. Hard bulkhead walls,

<question>:
Which term best describes Mars' population?

<options>:
A congested
B meager
C sustainable
D uninhabited

<answer>:

B