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

<passage>:
magnificent Melopolis, encradling the Oracle of Delni. I do not, of to me that many cling tenaciously, and ignorantly, to the old religion. In whose names Man killed and plundered, while struggling up. In whose returned, and settled down to live. Saddened, but resigned and content to live in peace with his knowledge and his power. Gone now are all the ancient evils, wars, emergencies. "Sias! Sias—" And they were upon me. states, quite prevalent among members of the race long ago, and are seldom seen today. Indeed, Melia was on this account made the butt of "Sias," they were saying, "the Maternite's gone." "Gone? It cannot be gone. It has always been—" "Oh my gods!" Xeon shouted. "I tell you it's gone! Will you—" Maternite Machine, it appears, has been drunk. The heat rose above the warning, continued to rise, and then—poof. Everything has evaporated in Maternite. All the Prelife is gone." "All of it?" I asked. what will happen with no more children?" "That is for the priests to say, not I," I replied. In moments of emergency, it is wise to speak with caution. That is, I suppose so. I nenglishmin go out in the midday sun, as the ancients say, although I They are of an age to enter manhood, and have all the energy such young As we entered the city, we were surrounded by confusion and consternation. And can the simple people be blamed? They were aware that they stood in the midst of an unprecedented happening indeed, an emergency. For a machine had failed! Not in the memory of the eldest among us has a machine failed. They as I know, has one failed. Small wonder that the watcher had been negligent. Indeed, the watcher is more a tradition than a necessity. pillars, the High Priest of the Maternite Machine was heard. assembled to hear. By this time, unfortunately, many of the Conclave had departed for home and supper. Yet perhaps it is for the best, for those left were the most earnest and intelligent. an easy matter for the Maternite Machine to add more and more born by the Generating Machine as children. The machines bear the exact number of children each year to balance the number of us whom the gods claim. Such it has always been from time immemorial." A murmur of assent and approval of these virtuous words whispered around the Hall. Indeed, I might call it an emergency. For the M-Maternite Machine has Cries of "Treason" sprang up, and I fear it might have gone hard for "That is not the worst," he cried, as if in defiance. "All the Prelife has been dried up. It will not function. There is no more. And there will be no more children!" At this I feared the Conclave was about to riot. It is at such times roar like a youngster? They quieted, breathing heavily, and I asked, "Is there no way, then, to produce more Prelife in order that the "As I have said," he replied, "give the machines but a bit of Prelife helpless." Such heresy could have brought a sad end to the priest had not the been a beginning to Prelife? For the Machine, it seems, cannot make it and yet it came from somewhere." "Riddles are not called for," I answered severely. "Are not riddles often the beginning of knowledge?" he asked, in that irritating dumber-than-thou attitude of his. "Must there not, long ago, do—" The heads of the Conclave were turning to me, quizzically. I although not mute, they could not speak." "If it be so," I said, quieting the hub-bub that followed, "and I would not doubt your word, Rocsates, for all know you are the wisest of men—if it were so, then, what of it?" "May it not be," Rocsates put in, "that these animals had no machines to such creatures. And indeed, if they had Maternite Machines, why then "And how, then, did these animals reproduce?" I asked. says there was a time before the machines, and before the Maternite Machine, and that at such a time both the animals and Men reproduced from within their own bodies?" At this two members of the Conclave fell immediately into a faint, and attentively to Rocsates, who, amid cries of "Heresy" and "Treason", went on: "I should like to ask the Conclave for permission to search the ancient "Not the films, Sias, but the books." and so delicate, that they are kept in an air-tight tomb being handled, they be destroyed and all knowledge within them lost. I called the meeting at dawn and so it was yet early in the afternoon when formalities were concluded and Rocsates granted leave to speak. "Some of those among you are She's," he began. "And you know you are different from the rest of us. To the advantage, your skin is fairer your excretory system is not so mechanically dextrous as ours. And, you exist no reason for this? Was there not, perhaps in ancient times, a cause for this? Do you not wonder, She's, whence you come and for what reason?" "Rocsates," I interrupted. "All this is fascinating, of course. But if you could be quick—" "Of course," he replied. "In the course of my reading I have read were created in that time, for not one of them mentions the machines. race, but we are all types of one race. And the fact of reproduction is somehow intimately related to the physical distinctions of the She's!" These last sentences were shouted to be heard above the roar of the crowd. Yet when Rocsates stopped, so also did the noise, so shocked and seems to have been so simple that there was once a problem of over-population." Order was lost among the Conclave as each man turned to speak to his something had to be done to save Rocsates before the outrage of the assembled overwhelmed him. such there was, I was hopeful of dismissing the entire affair with reproduction must have been a pleasant thing to do would not have done so to excess. And if it was a pleasant thing to do, where is the necessity for the machines, and why were they created?" Rocsates seemed perplexed by this problem, whereupon Xeon, who together with Melia were at the Conclave without permission, shouted, "Perhaps the process of reproduction was of such a pleasure that the Conclave ruled it to be a sin? And therefore the machines were necessary!" At this impudence the Conclave dissolved in an uproar, and I was beyond they cannot do until they meet again. I needed a sufficient excuse to call a meeting of the Conclave, desired audience, I immediately proclaimed a meeting of the Conclave "I have indeed discovered the secret of reproduction," he began. "After Life.' It seems to be some sort of a do-it-yourself pamphlet." He but it seems to mean...." His words trailed off. He was obviously bees...." When he finished the Conclave sat in horrified silence. His words, with all their horror, had the ring of truth and there were no cries of 'Heresy'. There was only stunned disbelief and the beginnings of nausea. "Shall not these organs which you mention have atrophied by now? With no use throughout all these generations, will they not have evolved "I do not think so," Rocsates replied after a while. "What to us is an eon, to evolution is but an instant. And then the swelling of the such horror?" replied. "The She, of course, must be one with the swelling of the undergo such an ordeal for the City? I voiced my assent, and the entire Conclave adjourned to the fields. had been a horrible day. The inhuman indignity, the cries— a time lapse which is necessary. The child does not appear immediately." through such an ordeal again?" "Of course," I replied. Anything they might want they could have. My

<question>:
All of the following terms describe the people's reaction to the destruction of the Maternite EXCEPT for:

<options>:
A perplexed
B panicked
C obtuse
D accusatory

<answer>:

D