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 U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] "The outlaw ships are attacking!" Old Garmon Nash's harsh voice snapped like a thunderclap in the cramped rocket flyer's cabin. "Five or six of them. Cut the searchlights!" cramped—disaster might loom but a few hundred feet away. "Trapped us neatly," Rolf said through clenched teeth. "Tolled into their underground hideout by that water-runner we tried to capture. We Planet Patrol ship as he swung the deadly slimness of his rocket blast's barrel around to center on the fiery jets that betrayed the approaching outlaw flyers. Three times he fired the gun, the rocket projectiles blasting off with Rolf swung the lax controls over hard as the bursts of fire revealed a In a slow sort of wonder Rolf felt the scrape of rock against metal, and then the screeching of air through the myriad rents in the cabin's meralloy walls grew to a mad whining wail. heat from the yet-glowing debris of the rocket flyer. The outlaws had even if there were he could never hope to reach the surface forty miles and more overhead. The floors of the thirty-seven caves through which they had so carefully jetted were a splintered, creviced series of canyon-like wastes, and as he ascended the rarefied atmosphere of the higher levels would spell death. the outlaws who smuggled their precious contraband water into the The young patrolman unzippered his jacket pocket and felt for the emergency concentrate bars that were standard equipment. Half of the oval bar he crushed between his teeth, and when the concentrated energy flooded into his muscles he set off around the irregular wall of the needlessly he reasoned. And he loosened the expoder in its holster as he moved carefully forward. The outlaw headquarters might be close of smoothly trimmed stone, and the floor fell away beneath his feet! He found himself shooting downward into a vast void that glowed softly at him more strongly as he neared the wall. And the barrier became a jumbled mass of roughly-dressed stone slabs, from whose earth-filled crevices sprouted green life. So slowly was the spinner dropping that the blackened desolation of the dropped to the compact expoder machine-gun holstered at his hip. There among the outlaws. This mysterious world that floated above the cavern An elongated pencil-ray of a man bounced nervously out to her side. "Altha," he scolded, scrubbing at his reddened bald skull with a long-fingered hand, "why do you never listen to me? I promised your father I'd look after you." He hitched at his tattered skin robe. and he dropped beside her in the shelter of a clump of coarse-leaved gray bushes. "The Furry Women attack!" "Right." The older man was slipping the stout bowstring into its "The outlaws may capture," warned Tanner. "They have taken over the outlaws have turned her people against her." Spear tips and bared swords glinted dully. the gray-furred muscles of their narrow bodies until they seemed utterly shoulderless, and beneath their furry pelts the ripples of smooth-flowing muscles played rhythmically. There was a stench, a musky penetrating scent that made the flesh of his body crawl. Borne on a carved and polished litter of ebon-hued wood and yellowed bone lolled the hideous queen of that advancing horde. Gaunt of body she was, her scarred gray-furred hide hanging loose upon her breastless frame. One eye was gone but the other gleamed, black and beady, from linked together into ghastly festoons about her heavy, short-legged litter. Men bore the litter, eight broad-shouldered red-haired men whose arms had been cut off at the shoulders and whose naked backs bore the weals maimed beasts of burden, but the hand of Mark Tanner pressed down hideous scrawling battle-cry burst from their throats. Rolf's expoder rattled briefly like a high-speed sewing machine as he flicked its muzzle back and forth along the ranks of attacking Furry Ones. Dozens of the hideous weasel creatures fell as the needles of explosive blasted them but hundreds more were swarming over their fallen sisters. Mark Tanner's bow twanged again and again as he drove arrows at the bloodthirsty warrior women. But the Furry Ones ran fearlessly into that rain of death. The expoder hammered in Rolf's heavy fist. the sheltering bulk of a rough square boulder. "Now where?" Rolf snapped another burst of expoder needles at the furry "To the vaults beneath the Forbidden City," Mark Tanner cried. "None The bald scientist slung his bow over his head and one shoulder and needles at the Furry Ones and followed. Darkness thickened as they penetrated into the maze of the Barrier's shattered heart. An unseen furry shape sprang upon Rolf's shoulders and as he sank to his knees he felt hot saliva drip like acid upon his floor before fangs or claws could rip at his tender flesh, and he heard a choked snarl that ended convulsively in silence. Bat-winged blobs of life dragged wet leathery hide across his face, and beneath his feet slimy wriggling things crushed into quivering pulp. "The outlaws!" he cried. "They're after Altha." you can. Your weapon is our only hope now." comrades. But if the outlaw saw him Rolf knew that he would be the A score of feet lay between them, and suddenly the outlaw whirled about. Rolf pressed the firing button own long-barreled expoder! fish-bellied alien ducked but his expoder swung off the target the guard's rifle expoder in his grasp the problem of escape from Forbidden City for Mark Tanner, and blast off for the upper crust forty not too tight, the man could free himself in the course of a few hours. same movement. Expoder needles splintered the rocks about him as he dropped behind a sheltering rocky ledge, and he caught a glimpse of two green-clad men dragging the bronze-haired body of the girl he had come A green bulge showed around the polished fuselage and Rolf pressed his captured weapon's firing button. A roar of pain came from the wounded man, and he saw an outflung arm upon the rocky ground that clenched tightly twice and relaxed to move no more. The outlaw weapon must have been loaded with a drum of poisoned needles, the expoder needles had not blasted a vital spot in the man's body. The odds were evening, he thought triumphantly. There might be another outlaw somewhere out there in the badlands, but no more than that. The glimmer of returning light. There were two sledges, one of them that he identified as the hammering of blood in his throbbing temples, and the other the measured blasting pulse of rocket jets. He opened his eyes slowly to find himself staring at the fine-crusted metal plates bound—apparently the outlaws had considered him out of the blasting torch away from his body and freed it. drop to his belted expoder. The outlaw was game. His fists slammed back at Rolf, and his knees instinctively aside from the crippling blows aimed at his body. For a moment they fought, coughing and choking from the thickening pall of smoke, and then the fingers of the outlaw clamped around Rolf's throat arm of the outlaw and even as he fought for more of the reeking smoky outlaw thudded limply against the opposite wall of the little cabin. the Forbidden City. Once Mark Tanner was aboard they would blast

<question>:
What was the outlaw weapon loaded with?

<options>:
A a drum of fuselage
B a drum of poisoned shrapnel
C a drum of poisoned bullets
D a drum of poisoned needles

<answer>:

D