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 9-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary
On Nilt, Strigan saves the injured Nilter but tells the girl and her mother that they need to take the family member to the city for further treatment. Strigan expresses surprise at Breq’s willingness to distract and reassure the girl. Strigan also reveals that she knows about the loss of Seivarden’s ship 1,000 years before. Pressed by Strigan, Seivarden relates how she awoke, “freezing and choking” (128), in the sick bay of a small ship. She describes her bewilderment at the changes around her, such as the presence of a human crew (in place of ancillaries) and the almost incomprehensible accents of their speech. Furthermore, all Seivarden’s personal data has disappeared and the aristocratic house to which she belonged ceases to exist.
Strigan, speaking a language Seivarden doesn’t know, tells Breq she is now sure that Breq is, in fact, a “corpse soldier” (133). Strigan speculates on the original identity of the body Breq occupies and asserts that she could likely restore that body’s original consciousness: “I can bring you back” (135). To this, Breq responds, “You can kill me, you mean” (135). Strigan asks why Breq wishes to kill Mianaai, scoffing at the idea that an ancillary can have a “personal” reason for doing anything. Strigan tells Breq she is no more than a piece of equipment and compares to her to the sentient ships of Radchaai lore that go mad after losing their captain. Strigan refuses to hand over the Garseddai gun unless Breq tell her the entire story of why she wants Anaander Mianaai dead.
Chapter 10 Summary
In Ors, the morning after the massacre in the temple, Anaander Mianaai announces that she is removing Lieutenant Awn from her position and sending her back to Justice of Toren. One Esk takes parting gifts to the Orsian families of Lieutenant Awn’s household temple attendants, but none of them acknowledge One Esk’s presence. The head priest expresses anger and sorrow at the massacre and asks One Esk what would have happened if Lieutenant Awn or One Esk had refused their orders. One Esk cannot give a clear answer.
Lieutenant Skaaiat pays a farewell visit to Awn, expressing relief that Mianaai did not kill Awn for refusing orders. Skaaiat asserts that nothing would have happened differently if Awn had resisted. Skaaiat talks about how Awn, in bypassing the local social hierarchy, conducted an unconventional occupation. Skaaiat claims that, had the plan to help the Tanmind attack the Orsians succeeded, it could have been offered up as an example of how the Radchaai had “gone soft,” now that the “wrong people” were exercising power. Skaaiat warns Awn to be wary of her fellow officers on the ship and hints at Mianaai’s involvement.
Chapter 11 Summary
On Nilt, Breq finishes telling her story of her previous life as Justice of Toren to Strigan. Strigan asks if Justice of Toren and its ancillaries participated in the destruction of Garsedd. Breq says yes but reveals that four Radchaai officers refused their orders on that occasion, including Justice of Toren’s own captain, who was shot for doing so. Strigan expresses surprise that any resisted. Breq again assures Strigan that the Radchaai are not brainwashed into conformity. She explains that the destruction of Garsedd was deeply upsetting to many Radchaai because the violence, unlike that of previous annexations, did not fulfill the Radchaai mission to bring the blessings of civilization to non-Radchaai. Breq notes that the first reforms of Radchaai policy began soon after Garsedd.
Strigan asks why the Presger would involve themselves with the Garseddai, a question Breq seizes on as evidence that Strigan does have the remaining Garseddai gun and suspects its alien origins. At last, Strigan agrees to sell Breq the remaining gun. Breq takes possession of the gun, which she can easily render invisible and undetectable. Strigan expresses skepticism that Breq will be able to pass as non-Radchaai while trying to gain access to Mianaai, but Breq assures Strigan that all she needs to do to be taken for a foreigner is to show up without gloves, speaking with the wrong accent.
Meanwhile, Seivarden’s attitude towards Breq seems to be less adversarial than before. Strigan warns Breq that Seivarden may only want Breq’s money for drugs, but Breq does not hesitate to take Seivarden with her when she leaves Strigan.
Chapter 12 Summary
Lieutenant Awn and One Esk return to Justice of Toren, still in orbit around Shis’urna. On board the ship, the medic begins preparations to replace the segment of One Esk killed in Ors with a frozen body from the hold, a process that requires thawing to return the body to consciousness. Awn insists on going to the sick bay to witness the “hookup.” She watches as the body reacts in terror and pain to the reawakening and calls out for help in a non-Radchaai language. One Esk also experiences the body’s fear and disorientation in the moments before gaining control of it. Awn takes the newly thawed body in her arms and tries to reassure it.
Awn scolds the medic, with whom she has argued about the handling of ancillary bodies before. The medic responds that if the lieutenant is so squeamish, maybe she’s “in the wrong place” (172). As One Esk gains control over the new segment, it realizes the body has an unpleasant voice and no skill at singing. One Esk cannot shake the feeling the medic has chosen this body out of spite.
The next morning, the other Esk Lieutenants, waiting for Lieutenant Awn to join them, discuss her return. Lieutenant Issaaia makes it clear she does not believe that Lieutenant Awn has the “breeding” to make it as an officer and has reached the limit of her abilities, and others seem to agree. Awn enters as Lieutenant Issaaia states, “Not everyone is cut out to be an officer” (179). The lieutenants also comment on how quiet One Esk has become, and they express relief that it’s no longer singing. Meanwhile, Justice of Toren discovers that a shuttle carrying drunken officers home from leave is also carrying three bodies of Anaander Mianaai, which insist on keeping their visit secret. Justice of Toren recalls a similar visit once before but cannot retrieve the memory. Justice of Toren also notes that, both times, Mianaai stayed on decks that gave her direct access to Justice of Toren’s brain.
Chapters 9-12 Analysis
These chapters show Breq succeeding in her mission to buy the Garseddai gun from Strigan on Nilt in one storyline, while another recounts the departure of Lieutenant Awn from Ors after the massacre of the Tanmind at Anaander Mianaai’s orders. Lieutenant Skaaiat’s parting advice to Lieutenant Awn and the reaction of the other lieutenants to her return demonstrate just how fragile her position is in the Radchaai hierarchy, given her low social origins and nontraditional approach to her duties. Lieutenant Skaaiat also suggests that many traditional Radchaai fear that their empire has “gone soft.”
In her conversations with Strigan, Breq pushes back at Strigan’s assumption that her sense of self, as Justice of Toren/One Esk/Breq is necessarily inauthentic because it is artificial. Breq specifically disclaims any sense of connection to the consciousness that once inhabited her body, but in the next chapter, these claims are undermined by the disturbing scene in which One Esk briefly shares the suffering of its newly attached segment. Lieutenant Awn’s compassionate response, which One Esk also experiences, helps explain One Esk’s powerful attachment to Awn. The medic’s attitude makes clear that Awn’s scruples about the handling of ancillary bodies are seen as yet another example of her weakness and her failure to embrace the Radchaai way.
Breq’s explanation to Strigan of the Radchaai reaction to the destruction of Garsedd forms a parallel in many ways to the massacre in the temple. Radchaai may object to extreme violence when it cannot be justified as ultimately benefitting citizens. However, the everyday violence of annexations, including the process of making ancillaries, is almost invisible to them.
On Nilt, Strigan speculates that the body Breq occupies is Ghaonish in origin. Back on Justice of Toren, a “jeweled Ghaonish mask” (175) hangs among the war booty on the walls of the Esk decade room, suggesting Strigan’s guess may be correct. Also hanging on the wall is a stained-glass window from a temple on Valskaay, whose people resisted the incorporation of their religion into Radchaai religion. Anaander Mianaai had eventually legalized the separate Valskaayan religion, another example of the reforms that began after the destruction of Garsedd. “Not long after,” notes One Esk, “the decades below Esk were emptied and closed” (175), suggesting a dramatic scaling back of the pace and volume of annexations.
Mianaai made the first of her secret visits to Justice of Toren at Valskaay, a visit that Justice of Toren struggles to recall. When Mianaai confronts One Esk in the Ors temple, One Esk denies this visit ever happened.
