60 pages • 2 hours read
Ann LeckieAncillary Justice
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 13-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary
On Nilt, Breq and Seivarden travel to the relatively temperate city of Therrod, famous for the elaborate system of ancient glass bridges, makers and origin unknown, which crisscross the ravines outside the city. Breq finds lodging for herself and Seivarden near a medical facility, and they soon cross paths with the girl who brought her injured uncle to Strigan, now in Therrod with her mother as their family member recuperates. The girl urges Breq to hear a performance by a singer, the girl’s cousin. Seivarden, who accompanies Breq to the performance, expresses scorn for Nilter “music” and walks out. Later, Breq learns from the girl and her mother that Seivarden sold Breq’s flier to a stranger. Breq finds Seivarden asleep in their room, passed out from kef purchased with the flier money.
Breq packs her belongings and leaves on foot, determined to be done with Seivarden. However, Seivarden follows her and catches up as Breq crosses one of the glass bridges. Seivarden reveals her belief that Breq is a Radchaai special agent sent to track her down and bring her into custody. When Breq turns to confront her, Seivarden falls from the bridge but manages to grab hold of a dangling spiral of glass. Breq attempts to save her, but they both fall into one of the glass tubes that line the ravine. Breq, who still has her Radchaai armor (Seivarden sold hers), manages to stop their fall but breaks several bones in the process. When Breq regains consciousness, Seivarden is gone, and Breq fears she will die alone on Nilt without accomplishing her mission.
Chapter 14 Summary
On board Justice of Toren, one of the three Anaander Mianaais enters the ship’s central access deck using a code Justice of Toren thinks is invalid but finds itself responding to anyway. The Anaander Mianaai on the central access deck searches the ship’s memories, then begins to alter them. Feeling “something like nausea” (203), Justice of Toren realizes this has happened before.
The other two Mianaais eavesdrop on the Esk lieutenants and question Justice of Toren about Lieutenant Awn’s behavior since “the incident” on Shis’urna. When the segment waiting on them informs them of Lieutenant Awn’s conversation with Lieutenant Skaaiat, the Mianaais note their longstanding suspicion of Lieutenant Skaaiat’s house, Awer, known for its idealism and willingness to criticize the Radch. Justice of Toren realizes that Anaander Mianaai has somehow divided, and that some of her selves are in secret conflict with others. As a result of the third Mianaai’s reprogramming, the segment serving the Mianaais soon finds itself reciting a false version of events in the temple at Ors. The three Anaander Mianaais on board Justice of Toren represent the side opposed to the reforms initiated by other versions of herself, especially the treaty with the Presger.
In hindsight, Breq reflects that her sense of having a separate identity, split off from Justice of Toren, began with feeling surprise at hearing one segment recite an altered version of events on Ors as a consequence of the Mianaai’s reprogramming of the ship’s memory. Looking back even further, Breq also sees hints of One Esk slowly developing a separate personality over the course of centuries, perhaps linked to its habit of singing and collecting music.
Justice of Toren receives orders to travel to Valskaay, a world where One Esk once collected “volume upon volume of elaborate, multi-voiced, choral music” (216) while fighting rebels determined to resist annexation. This time, however, Justice of Toren suspects the ship is going there to be decommissioned and placed in orbit for reuse.
Chapter 15 Summary
On Nilt, Breq, drifting in and out of consciousness, thinks she sees Seivarden and the Nilter girl playing Tiktik. Coming fully awake, she finds herself in a hospital room in Therrod, with Seivarden watching over her. Seivarden explains that she had not yet gone to buy kef when she found Breq missing from their room, and that she chose to follow Breq rather than buy drugs. Seivarden reveals that she has been reflecting on her past behavior. She regrets ever thinking that she was better than Breq, when Breq has proved herself more capable and adaptable than Seivarden.
The Nilter girl, whose uncle is in the same facility, visits Breq and mentions that Seivarden paid for Breq’s hospitalization, presumably out of the money from the sale of the flier. The girl also mentions that Seivarden is a terrible Tiktik player, confirming that Breq was not dreaming when she saw the two playing together. Seivarden later confirms that she paid for Breq’s hospitalization and has kept the contents of Breq’s pack safe, including the Garseddai gun (which Seivarden found while looking for first aid supplies).
Breq tells Seivarden that she is not a Radchaai agent sent to retrieve Seivarden, and that Seivarden is free to leave her. Seivarden refuses, saying she is confident there is some important connection between herself and Breq: “You’re the first person, since that pod opened, to feel familiar” (225). Speaking of her sense of loneliness after coming out the pod, Seivarden says that she even missed the ships she knew before and tried to trace Justice of Toren.
Seivarden demands to know what kind of “personal business” requires the Garseddai gun. Breq answers Seivarden’s question by telling her the story of the rebellion against the corrupt governor at Ime. Breq details Mianaai’s great lengths to prevent the soldier from telling her story, trying to convey to Seivarden the extent of conflict and division in the Radch and its deep roots in the past. Seivarden, despite the changes in her thinking, attributes these changes to the promotion of unqualified officers.
Chapter 16 Summary
Justice of Toren continues the lengthy voyage to Valskaay. Ships usually use established “space gates” for such journeys, but Justice of Toren follows the orders to make its own shortcut on this journey. The ship conceals the news of Anaander Mianaai’s presence on the ship, but Lieutenant Awn senses that something is worrying One Esk, who also sings far less. Meanwhile, Mianaai frets over the possible fragmentation of the Radch, telling the ship that she can no longer prevent, only limit, the conflict between her warring selves.
Finally, Anaander Mianaai has Lieutenant Awn brought to her quarters and questions the lieutenant about the guns found near Ors and the subsequent massacre in the temple, suggesting that Lieutenant Awn was responsible for both. Mianaai reveals her knowledge of the conversation between Lieutenant Awn and Lieutenant Skaaiat in which they hinted at Anaander Mianaai’s involvement. The Lord of the Radch insinuates that the lieutenants may be traitors, like the rebellious soldier at Ime. Mianaai asks Lieutenant Awn to prove her loyalty by spying on Lieutenant Skaaiat. Awn refuses and asks for Mianaai to interrogate her instead. Mianaai orders the ancillary present, a segment of One Var, to shoot Lieutenant Awn.
Elsewhere on the ship, officers notice One Esk becoming agitated, and after Anaander Mianaai calls for Lieutenant Awn’s death, Justice of Toren asks for One Esk’s sedation. As Mianaai explains that she is at war against herself, Lieutenant Awn responds with anger. The lieutenant says she should have died in the temple rather than obey this version of Anaander Mianaai, and Mianaai orders One Var to fire. One Var does so, then turns the gun on Mianaai, shooting and killing the body that ordered the execution.
One of the surviving bodies of Anaander Mianaai trips the same device used in Ors to break the connections between Justice of Toren and its individual segments, but the ship manages to send orders to its constituent parts in the moments before the device takes effect. As chaos erupts on the ship, segment One Esk Nineteen boards an escape shuttle while the rest of One Esk defends Justice of Toren’s central access deck. At the moment of Awn’s execution, Justice of Toren believed obedience was necessary to conceal that another Anaander Mianaai controlled the ship. However, on the way to the shuttle, sorrow, anger, and guilt over the death of Lieutenant Awn overwhelms One Esk Nineteen.
As the shuttle prepares to launch, Justice of Toren disappears in a flash of light; Anaander Mianaai has penetrated the engine’s heat shield, causing the instantaneous destruction of the ship and everyone on board. One Esk, realizing what has happened, reflects that “[n]othing would ever be right again” (254).
Chapters 13-16 Analysis
In Chapter 8, One Esk described its segments’ experience of disconnection in Ors as “the third worst thing ever to happen to [it]” (112). These chapters dramatize what are clearly the first and second items on this list, the execution of Lieutenant Awn and the destruction of the Justice of Toren. It is One Esk Nineteen, alone and tormented by guilt, who will take on the name Breq and set out to execute as many versions of Anaander Mianaai as possible.
In terms of the themes of selfhood and identity, these chapters provide a climax as well. Breq/Justice of Toren/One Esk Nineteen both relives the experience of becoming isolated in a single body and reflects on when, exactly, One Esk began to develop a sense of self separate from Justice of Toren. These reflections include speculation as to whether One Esk’s singing and the collection of music played a part in this development. One Esk’s most powerful memories of music in these chapters involve Valskaay, the world whose people resisted the incorporation of their religion into Radch religion so strongly that the more progressive version of Anaander Mianaai finally crafted a compromise. On Valskaay, in addition to downloading a massive library of choral music (tellingly, for multiple voices), One Esk attended choral society meetings and listened with emotion to the songs the Valskaay rebels sang on the verge of death. Perhaps something of the Valskaayans’ stubborn individuality became part of One Esk through the absorption of their music.
However, Breq/One Esk pushes these questions about selfhood and identity even further, speculating that “anyone’s identity” may be “a matter of fragments held together by convenient or useful narrative, that in ordinary circumstances never reveals itself as a fiction” (207). This seems an apt description of what happened to Seivarden. Seivarden awoke after 1,000 years to discover the elements that formed her sense of self—her rank, her house—had simply disappeared. She is now creating a new narrative for herself, in which loyalty to Breq plays a central role.
Anaander Mianaai has clearly undergone a fracturing of self as literal as that which One Esk experiences under the influence of the jamming device. Ironically, the reactionary versions of Anaander Mianaai actually repeat verbatim many of the same speeches the reform-minded version of Mianaai made when subverting Justice of Toren’s memory banks to her own purpose years before. The sense of déjà vu that haunts Justice of Toren during these encounters deepens the ship’s feelings of disorientation. The narrative style of this section, featuring rapid cutting between the experiences of multiple selves, also suggests the fragmentation of both Justice of Toren and Anaander Mianaai’s identities. Yet Breq concludes that “[a]cting for one Mianaai or another was indistinguishable. And of course, in the end, whatever their differences, they were both the same” (247).
