 Which term best describes the narrator's attitude toward writing up the first trip to Mars?
Illustrated by WOOD My agent was the one who got me the job of going along to write up the first trip to Mars. "It'll be the biggest break a writer ever got," he told me, two days before blastoff. A you-are-there type of report? So I went on the first trip to Mars. Trip time is supposed to take 260 days (that's one way), so we're aimed toward where Mars will be (had better be, or else). A pilot, co-pilot, navigator and biochemist. I've met all but the pilot (he's very busy today), and they seem friendly enough. Jones (that's the co-pilot; I didn't quite catch his first name) is scarlet-faced, barrel-chested and gives the general appearance of belonging under the spreading chestnut tree, not in a metal bullet flinging itself out into airless space. He passed my room on the way to the galley (the kitchen) for a cup of dark brown coffee (they like it thick) and told me that we were almost past the Moon. I still don't know Jones' first name, though Pat spoke to him, and it sounded like Flants. Also, I am one of the first five men in the history of the world to see the opposite side of the Moon, with a bluish blurred crescent beyond it that Pat said was the Earth. Actually, he explained to me, the screen is supposed to keep the image of space locked into place no matter how much we spin. I told him I hoped it didn't mean we'd land on Mars upside down. With Martian rime, Venusian slime, And a radioactive hoe. He says it may prove to be environmentally accurate, but that I should stick to prose. So now I know all about Vanity Fair , Pride and Prejudice , War and Peace , Gone with the Wind , and Babbitt . They didn't take as long as I thought they would, except for Vanity Fair . He's all for going out and looking for lichen, but Pat says he's got to set up camp, then get instructions from Earth. Pat told me not to go too far from camp, so, when I took a stroll, I made sure every so often that I could still see the rocket behind me.
 apprehensive
 ambivalent  apprehensive  resentful  downtrodden