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

<passage>:
could not survive on the Earth, because the conditions that made him great were gone. The survivors must be In the outer doorway, backed by his clansmen, stood Groz, gazing first Var said, "The Watcher's cave should be three miles beyond this pass." He stood rigid, trying to catch an echo of the Watcher's thoughts, but there was nothing. Perhaps the old man was resting. From the other She was beautiful and defiant, facing the red sunset and the black mountain. Var sensed her fear, and the love that had conquered it. He follow him. Now, if her father and his kinsmen overtook them, it would "Wait," he commanded. While she waited he spun a dream, attaching it to from the crevices of the rock. "Oh!" cried Neena in involuntary alarm. Var sighed, shaking his head. "It won't hold them for long, but it's the one alone might never have won through. It was starry night already when they saw the light from the Watcher's Both had heard of this place, and the ancient who lived there to keep watch on the Ryzga mountain, as a part of the oldest legends of their They felt the Watcher rouse, heard his footsteps, and finally saw him—a of him, more marred by age than anyone they had ever seen before, was disappointing. They had expected something more—an ancient giant, a tower of wisdom and strength. The Watcher was four hundred years old beside him even Groz, who had always seemed so ancient, was like a boy. The Watcher peered at them in turn. "Welcome," he said in a cracked The old man grinned toothlessly. "Never fear. Asleep or awake, I watch. against melting by the Watcher's will. Light blazed in reflections from Hot food and drink were before them almost at once. The Watcher regarded off and forced us into the mountains, and now they are only a few hours behind us." "A pity, indeed. I would like to help you—but, you understand, I am the Mountain Watcher. I must be above feuds and families." Var nodded somberly, thinking that an old recluse would in any case be Var grinned mirthlessly. "We haven't much choice, since they're overtaking us. I have only one idea left: we can go where Groz may fear to follow us." "And into it, if need be." The Watcher was broodingly silent his eyes shifted to Neena, where she nestled by Var's side. He asked, "And you—are you willing to follow Var, and her lips curled with a proud and tender mockery. "Follow? Why, The old man said, "It is no part of my duty to dissuade you from this thing. You are free persons. But I must be sure that you know what you are doing. That is the second part of the law the First Watcher made: to guard lest the unwary and the ignorant should bring harm on themselves and on all men." farther into the mountain than anyone before, farther even than did the First Watcher. I did not see the sleepers, nor will any man until they come again, but I met their sentries, the sentinel machines that guard them now as they have for two thousand years. When I had gone that far, the mountain began to shake, the force that is in the Earth rumbled below, and I returned in time." Now for the first time Var sensed the "The Ryzgas also were men," said the Watcher. "But they were such a race but such tyranny, power, and cruelty as theirs, had never been known. They ruled the Earth for four generations, and the Earth was too little for them. They laid the world waste, stripped it of metals and fuels and bored to its heart for energy, poisoned its seas and its air with the fume of those four generations they launched a ship of space. They were great and evil as no other people has been, because they wanted the stars. "Because of them we must build with dreams instead of iron, and our only Earth is still slowly recovering from the pangs and poison of that age. If you turn up the sod in the plain where the wild herds graze, you will sure that their works and their knowledge would perish with them. Meanwhile they redoubled the yoke and the punishments, hastening the completion of the last of the starships. "From the memories that the old Watchers have left here, and from the Before them death waited around the citadel where the masters still through—before. With deep respect now he gazed upon the bent old man who was the Mountain Watcher. Earth. But there was a group of them who believed that their time to rule would come again. These raised a black mountain from the Earth's heart, and in hollows within it cast themselves into deathless sleep, their deathless and lifeless sentinels round them, to wait till someone dare arouse them, or until their chosen time—no one knows surely. The Watcher eyed them speculatively. "Before all," he said finally, looked grimly at the Watcher, and would have spoken but the Watcher that sleep was for infants and the aged, but his intention sank and had wakened him. Across the cave he faced a young man who watched him coolly with dark piercing eyes that were familiar though he did not know the face. Neena sat up and stifled a cry of fright. Var growled, "Who are you? Where's the Watcher?" The other flashed white teeth in a smile. "I'm the Watcher," he answered. "Often I become a youth at morning, and relax into age as the day passes. A foolish amusement, no doubt, but amusements are few here." "You made us fall asleep. Groz will be on us—" "Groz and his people could not detect your thoughts as you slept. They Watcher." Not looking at the Watcher, Var muttered unsteadily, "We have no they followed him outside. "You have an alternative," said the Watcher crisply. The two took their will be deceived and follow her, and by the time they catch her it will The Watcher's face did not change. He said gravely, "Very well. I will "You are ready to go," said the Watcher. He spoke aloud, and his voice Watcher had become again the hoary ancient of last night. don't blame us?" "You have taken life in your own hands," rasped the Watcher. "Who does that needs no blessing and feels no curse. Go!" Var sent his thoughts probing beyond the curtain, listened intently, Behind Groz the figures of his followers loomed up as striding shadows. Neena's hand tightened on Var's. Var sent a thought of defiance: "Go back! Or you'll drive us to enter the mountain!" exhorting his men to haste. made it only this far. It was farther than the Watcher had gone into " Stop! —before you go too far!" "Follow us, then!" before their monstrous and inhuman power. Without warning, lights went on. Blinking in their glare, Var and Neena with gleaming control buttons, levers, colored lights. As they watched the two invaders felt the rapid shifting of magnetic fields, the fury of electrons boiling in vacuum.... not wholly roused from his two millenia of slumber. But the Ryzga's manner and his mind radiated a consciousness of power, a pride and assurance of self that smote them like a numbing blow. close his mind in the presence of inferior creatures.... He paused with his back to the central control panel, and studied the interlopers with the dispassionate gaze of a scientist examining a new, but not novel, species of insect. His thoughts seemed to click, like metal parts of a mechanism falling into places prepared for them. The the driving will they had sensed a moment earlier. It was a sick man's efforts, as he strove to free himself from the neural hold, were as misdirected and unavailing as those of a child who has not learned to wrestle with the mind. with an infant, he projected his thoughts into the other's mind. "There its fuel. After us man

<question>:
Who is the Watcher?

<options>:
A Someone who has been granted the honor of watching over the mountain region
B A man who was exiled from society because of violent tendencies
C An old man who has retracted from society
D An alien in charge of protecting the planet

<answer>:

A