 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. The lights in the cabin dimmed to a dull, red glow that meant the time for takeoff was nearing. 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. 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. 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. In high school and later in college, he was the well-balanced type, athletic, popular, hard-working. Hell, no! 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. Eckert and he had been chosen to go to Tunpesh and investigate. The thin red line was practically microscopic now and Templin could feel his lashes lying gently on his cheeks. They knew that it had no trading concessions or armed forces and that nobody from neighboring systems seemed to know much about it or even visited it. But a staff anthropologist must have been routinely assigned to Tunpesh to furnish data and reports. Warm breezes rustled through Eckert's graying hair and tugged gently at his tunic. It would be like a famous singer suddenly doing a jazz number in an opera, or having the princess in a fairy tale turn out to be ugly." The village started where the port left off and crawled and wound over the wooded ridges. They finally came out on the field and clustered around him and Templin.
 nervous
 experienced  observant  nervous  open-minded