Contempt
The prisoner has just enough consciousness left to hear and understand a threat. "Remember, dear Colonel, if you decide to disobey us, you will be separated from your body, a vegetable forever." The assistants close the lid of the sarcophagus, locking the sedated man in his coffin of icy water.
The Emperor is not worried about disobedience. The prisoner is by nature arrogant and presumptuous, like all white men, but the better part of a night spent in cold storage has convinced him that resistance is pointless. When The Emperor's men finally threw the prisoner into a holding cell in a heated part of the compound, he had been too close to hypothermia to speak and had kept his eyes down.
This worthless man has gall, though, even a kind of crude courage. While surrounded by armed men, he had attempted to question and bargain. The Emperor had enjoyed slapping him down with a few words. It was satisfying to see the white man's expression fall, and later to watch him try to maintain his composure while standing nearly naked amongst The Emperor's soldiers and scientists.
The very idea that such a creature would dare to haggle as if they The Emperor were a rug seller is some cheap bazaar fills Ashoka with murderous anger. Europeans are fools and knaves, every one of them. They have no values, no real heart, no sense of destiny. It is sweet to think of using them against each other, reducing them to tools, bringing them to their knees. Men like this pose no threat to the likes of Ashoka the Eternal.