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

<passage>:
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Sure I'm a Nilly, and I've died seven times, always in the blackness of the outer reaches, and I'm not alone, although there aren't very many of us, never were. It made sense. Interstellar was new and they wanted him on the ship because he was a trained observer. They wanted facts, not gibberish. But to ask a man to give up two years of his life—well, that was before with a thousand families, reached the planet with less than five hundred surviving colonists. Upon the return to Earth a year later, the crew's report of suffering and chaos during the year's outgoing voyage was twisted, distorted and fragmentary. Ellason remembered it well. The the halfway point. It ended with passengers engaging in open warfare with each other and the crew. Sessions was lucky to escape with his life." breathing of so many men, and the ventilators could not quite clear the air of tobacco smoke that drifted aimlessly here and there before it was caught and whisked away. I say that until the journey ends." He smiled. "Perhaps I shouldn't and a solitary ceiling molding tube-light. This would be his home for a year, just as there were homes like it for three thousand others, except that the family rooms would be larger. His quarters were near He felt rather than heard the dull rumble. It was a sound he knew would be with him for two years—one year going and one year returning. He looked at his watch, picked up his notebook and made an entry. The should have been permitted aboard. Ellason had to smile at that. What did Captain Branson think of those colonists who killed each other on the Weblor I man emerging from Janssen's compartment with the black case. "I didn't think anything of it at the time," Jamieson Dievers said. Branson asked him to describe the man. "Oh, he was about six feet tall, stocky build, and he wore a red rubber Although Dievers' account appeared in the newsletter, it was largely discounted. men, women and children—felt that the thief must surely live in Quadrant Two or Four. Elias Cromley, who had the compartment next to Janssen's, sounded the consensus when he said, "Surely a man wouldn't exists, which is any overt act, sometimes violent. On the forty-fifth day June Failright, the young wife of one of the passenger meteorologists, ran screaming down one of the long corridors of the Third Quadrant. She told the captain she had been attacked in her compartment while her husband was in the ship's library. She was taken to one of the ship's doctors, who confirmed it. She said the culprit was a husky man wearing a red rubber mask, and though her description of what he had done did not appear in the story Ellason was present when a delegation from the Third Quadrant called on Captain Branson, demanding action. Branson remained seated behind his desk, unperturbed, saying, "I have no crewmen to spare for police duty." The group left in a surly mood. "You wonder at my reluctance, Mr. Ellason," Captain Branson said. "But Weblor II it was ready for ripening. Raymond Palugger was killed in the ship's hospital on the sixty-first day. Palugger, a Fourth Quadrant passenger, had complained of feeling ill, had been hospitalized with a diagnosis of ileus. He had put his money belt in the drawer of the small stand beside his bed. A man in a red mask was seen hurrying from the hospital area, and a staff investigation revealed that Palugger had died trying to prevent the theft of the belt. Captain Branson did not wait for the newsletter. Through the ship's speaker system, he reported that Palugger had a fortune in credits in the belt and had died of a severe beating. He said that since the incident occurred in the staff section of the ship, his crew would be forced to submit to a thorough inspection in an effort to find the Faces were angry, tongues were sharp at the meeting, eyes suspicious and tempers short. Above it all was the overpowering presence of Captain Branson speaking to them. everyone returned to his compartment, and the larger search was conducted. It took twenty hours. death. During sleep time on the seventy-ninth day Barbara Stoneman, awakened by a strange sound, sat up in the bed of her compartment to find a man in a red mask in her room. Her cries brought neighbors into the escaped. We've got him on the run, the colonists said. of themselves. A special congratulatory message from Captain Branson appeared one day in the Bulletin newsletter. The colonists settled down to living out the rest of the voyage until the landing on Antheon. But on the 170th day calamity struck. Red Mask appropriated one of the put occupants to sleep as he went, taking many articles of value and leaving disorder behind. Ellason interviewed as many victims as he could, noted it all in doctor, asked. "I can see him taking my narcotics, my doctor's kit—but my dead wife's picture? That I don't understand." It was the same with others. "The man's insane, Mr. Ellason. Positively insane." Many people said it. The council issued orders that all passengers from now on would be "And what will you do when you get him?" "Kill him," Tilbury said, licking his lips, his eyes glowing more fiercely than ever. "Without a trial?" "Oh, there'll be a trial, Mr. Ellason, but you don't think any jury'd let him live after all the things he's done, do you?" named Terryl Placer on the 201st day. The criminal was carried to the assembly room surrounded by guards, for he surely would have been mauled, if not killed, by angry colonists who crowded around. In the remembered the face, and Captain Branson, who came to have a look at him, unhappily admitted the man was a member of the crew. His name was Branson looked as if he were going to kill the man himself right there and then. It was a long trial—from the 220th to the 241st day—and there didn't Lemuel Tarper, who was appointed prosecutor, asked him, "What did you do with the loot, Critten?" Critten looked him square in the eye and said, "I threw it out one of just sitting around. I had to work my head off keeping records for you lazy bastards." The verdict was, of course, death. They executed Harrel Critten on the morning of the 270th day with blasts from six stunners supplied with full power. It was witnessed by a great crowd in the assembly hall. A detail from the ship's crew disposed of his body through a chute. It was all duly recorded in Keith Ellason's notebooks. Dying is easy for a Nilly. Especially if it's arranged for beforehand, which it always is. was only one day out of orbit when Captain Branson sent for Ellason and introduced him to the executed man. there were wars." "You were excellent," Ellason said. "Can't say I enjoyed the role," said Critten, "but I think it saved lives." "Let me get this straight. Interstellar thought that it was idleness and boredom that caused the killings on the Weblor I , so they had you Ellason nodded. "No time for brooding, for differences of opinion on small matters. Just time to hate Mr. Critten. Unanimously." Captain Branson will say they were found somewhere on the ship. You see, I was a liar." into the hall claiming I'd attacked her, which I did not. She was certainly amazed when the ship's physicians agreed with her. Of course Captain Branson told them to do that." "And the murder?" "Raymond Palugger died in the hospital all right, but he died from his illness on the operating table. We turned it into an advantage by making it look suspicious."

<question>:
What happened to Mr. Palugger?

<options>:
A He was pushed out of the airlock.
B He was beaten to death.
C The man in the red mask shot him.
D He died of his illness.

<answer>:

D