 Which word least describes Eckert?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1951. ] Nothing could have seemed pleasanter than that peaceful planet. Templin tightened his safety belt and lay back on the acceleration bunk. The lights in the cabin dimmed to a dull, red glow that meant the time for takeoff was nearing. He could hear noises from deep within the ship and the tiny whir of the ventilator fan, filling the air with the sweetish smell of sleeping gas. Or more complex ones, if you went into it deeper. The failure to achieve an ambition, failure to live up to one's own ideals. Weltschmerz, perhaps. Eckert had lit a cigarette and was calmly blowing the smoke at the neon "No Smoking" sign, which winked on and off in mechanical disapproval. He turned his head slightly so he could just see Eckert in the bank facing him. Eckert, one of the good gray men in the Service. It was Eckert who had come into his office several days ago and told him that Don Pendleton had killed himself. He was the kind who have everything to live for, the kind you instinctively know will amount to something someday. Your memory plays traitor and boils friendship down to the status of a breakfast food testimonial. Eckert was just a dull, formless blur opposite him. Eckert had come into his office without saying a word and had watched his scenery-window. Eckert had fiddled with the controls and changed it to sunshine, then to a weird mixture of hail amid the brassy, golden sunlight. There had been no mental instability in his family for as far back as the genetic records went. He had been raised in a middle-class neighborhood and attended a local grammar school where he had achieved average grades and had given his instructors the normal amount of trouble. Later, when he had made up his mind to enter the Diplomatic Service, his grades had improved. In high school and later in college, he was the well-balanced type, athletic, popular, hard-working. How long would it be before memories faded and all there was left of Pendleton was a page of statistics? Hell, no! He had been the first attache to be sent and naturally he had gone alone. Tunpesh had been inspected and certified and approved. And then an unscheduled freighter had put in for repairs, one of the very few ships that ever came by Tunpesh. It was almost black inside the cabin now; only a thin red line around the ceiling told how close they were to takeoff.
 nervous
 experienced  observant  nervous  open-minded