humiliation, pain and
death.

A mosquito lit on Rivers' blotched cheek, and he raised a heavy arm to
brush it away. Then he relaxed again with a snore. Liu paused,
waiting. The glorious exaltation was mounting higher. It occurred to
him to sharpen these sensations, to heighten them. After all, he was
about to kill a drunken man in a drunken sleep. He wanted something
better. He wanted to feel his power over a conscious man, a man
conscious and aware of what was to befall him. Even as his father had
been conscious and aware of what was befalling him, even as thousands
of his countrymen were awake and aware, knowing what was being done to
them--by the dominant race. He wished Rivers awake and aware. It
involved greater risk, but it was worth it. Therefore, with the point
of his sharp, keen knife, he gently prodded the throat of the sleeper,
lying supine before him under the moon rays. Gently, very gently, he
prodded the exposed throat, placed the point of his knife very gently
upon his heaving, corded larynx, which pulsed inward and outward under
the heaving, stertorous breaths. Gently he stimulated the corded,
puffing throat, gently, with the point of his sharp knife.

The result was as he wished. First Rivers stirred, moved a restless
arm, flopped an impotent, heavy arm that fell back upon the pillow, an
arm that failed to reach its objective, to quell the tickling, cold
point prodded into his throat. Then as he slowly grew conscious, the
movements of the arm became more coordinated. Into his drunken mind
came the fixed sensation of a disturbance at his throat. He became
conscious, opened a heavy eye, and fixed it upon Liu, without at the
same time feeling the pressing point at his throat. Liu saw his
returning consciousness, and leaning over him, pressed upon his
throat, ever so lightly, the point of his long knife. Thus for a
moment or two they regarded each other, Liu having the advantage. But
so it had always been. Having the advantage was one of the attributes
of the dominant race. Thus for those few brief seconds, Liu
experienced the whole glory of it. And as little by little Rivers
emerged from the drunken to the conscious, to the abjectly, cravenly
conscious, so Liu mounted to the heights.

Then he saw that Rivers was about to cry out. To let forth a roaring
bellow, a howling bellow. Enough. He had tasted the whole of it. He
had felt, for prolonged and glorious moments, the feelings of the
superior race. Th