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

<passage>:
Casey Ritter, the guy who never turned down a dare, breathed a prayer to the gods of idiots and spacemen, and headed in toward smuggling Kooleen crystals in from Mars, I knew I was in that corner, and sewed up tight. Sure, the crystals are deadly, but I was smuggling them legitimately, in a manner of speaking, for this doctor to experiment with. He wasn't also, I had promised not to rat on him before taking the job. Well, Casey Ritter may be a lot of things we won't mention, but he doesn't rat on his clients. So there I was, closeted with the ten members of the S.S. Customs Court, getting set to hear the gavel collapsed onto my chair. A crafty-eyed buzzard across the table leaned toward me. "So this is the great Casey Ritter, daredevil of the Solar System!" he sneered. "Never loses a bet, never turns down a dare!" now to think of it. The way that bunch of stuffed shirts in the S.S.C. made a gold-barred chimpanzee out of me has broken my spirit and turned me into an honest trader. Me, Casey Ritter, slickest slicker in the Solar System, led like a precious infant right where I'd flatly refused to go! In plain English, I underestimated the enemy. Feeling and after awhile I braced him. I was right. I'd met the shrimp before when I was wound up in an asteroid real estate racket. Pard Hoskins was his alias, and he had the tag of being a real slick operator. We swapped yarns for about a week when we met, and then I asked him what's his rap this trip. of contemptuously but those Bleachies are a rough lot when they're mad, and if Pard had really got near those emeralds, he should be nothing but a heap of cleaned bones by now. Either he was the world's jelly, trying to figure that steal. The next morning I got up burning with this fever for information, only to find that Pard had got himself By that time he really had me hooked. I'd of sworn he was leveling with me. But he wouldn't tell me how he'd worked the steal. Instead, he opened up on the trade he'd booked for the string. He said, "When I chisel me way outa this squirrel cage, I'm gonna hit fer good old Jupe and sell 'em to Akroida. She's nuts about jools. What that old girl won't give me fer 'em—" He whistled appreciatively, thinking about it. them emeralds." I went back to my cot that night, and this time instead of biting my nails, I bit myself. So I faced it. Casey Ritter lost his nerve, and was too late, after all. I could hardly wait for morning to come, so that I could pry more information out of Pard Hoskins. But I didn't see Pard for a few days. And then, a week later, a group Hoskins was in the bunch. He'd never get out of there, and he knew it. So did I. friendly as a bottle of strychnine. But for a lad headed for Jupiter that was good training, so I sneered right back at him, explained the caper, and we both paid a visit to Pard. In two days the deal was made and the caper set up. There were a few bits of info that Pard had to shell out, like where the emeralds were, and how to communicate with those scorpions, and how he'd made Akroida mad. slipped down onto the Red Desert of Mars and picked up the Killicut Emeralds from where Pard Hoskins had cached them and safe out in space again, we had pored over that string of green headlights practically "These—" he had proclaimed with a disdainful flourish, like a placer miner pointing to a batch of fool's gold—"These jewels are as nothing, Ritter, compared with the value of the secret you are to buy with them. And be assured that if you're man enough to effect the trade—" He paused, his long nose twitching cynically—"IF you succeed, your snarled at him. "Just you wait till I do, feller!" I slipped the string of emeralds back into its little safe. "Instead of sniping at me, why don't you get that brain busy and set our rendezvous?" though, I nearly lost my grip on the handle. In fact, I'd have fainted dead away right there if Pard Hoskins hadn't been there already and then he examined me with it just like an old-time earl with one of those things they called monocles. Pard hadn't warned me about those Ritter. What's your label, chum?" nuts. Then I got a glimmer through my paralyzed gray matter. "Who named you that?" He simpered. "My dear friend, Pard Hoskins." I breathed again. How simple could I get? He'd already mistaken me for Pard, hadn't he? Then I remembered something else. "How come you aren't alive but loved and cherished, thanks to Pard's inventiveness and to a kindly fate which had sent Pard's old pal my way. A great man, Pard Hoskins. How had he made friends with the brute in the first place? Pard was right again. These critters had brains. And my S.S.C. persecutor was right, too. That anti-grav secret was worth more than any string of rocks in the system, including the Killicut Emeralds. as solid as if on a floor. Which was fine for flying hopper-scorps, but what about Casey Ritter, who hadn't cultivated even a feather? "Who from?" asked Akroida. That conversation was telegraphed to me blow by blow by the actions of those hopper-scorps. I didn't need their particular brand of Morse Code at all. "Who from?" Attaboy cringed lower and blushed a purple all-over blush. "Dear lady, it is from an interspace trader who possesses some truly remarkable jewels," he confessed coyly. Akroida toyed with the Halcyon Diamond and ignored the bait. "His name?" she demanded. And when he told her, with a bad stutter in his code, she reared up higher on her skinny elbow and glared in my direction. "Casey Ritter? Never heard of him. Where's he from?" Well, after all, she wasn't blind. He had to confess. "I—uh—the

<question>:
Who is Pard Hoskins and what is his relationship to Casey Ritter?

<options>:
A Pard Hoskins is a daredevil like Casey Ritter. Casey met Pard during a Pluto related operation, and now the two have met again in jail. Pard has been to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot before, and so he teaches Casey how to trick its inhabitants into giving him emeralds.
B Pard Hoskins is a smuggler/grifter like Casey Ritter. Casey met Pard during a gambling related operation, and now the two have met again in jail. Pard has been to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot before, and so he invites Casey to help him break out of jail so that they can go sell emeralds on Jupiter together.
C Pard Hoskins is a smuggler/grifter like Casey Ritter. Casey met Pard during a real estate related operation, and now the two have met again in jail. Pard has been to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot before, and so he teaches Casey how to deal with its inhabitants and navigate safely.
D Pard Hoskins is a smuggler/grifter like Casey Ritter. Casey met Pard during the Kooleen crystal operation, and now the two have met again in jail. Pard has been to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot before, and so he teaches Casey how to make sure it’s strange inhabitants don’t fall in love with him, as this could ruin the mission.

<answer>:

C