Ancillary Justice

“I cleaned the blood off her as best I could, checked her pulse (still there) and temperature (rising). Once I would have known her core temperature without even thinking, her heart rate, blood oxygen, hormone levels. I would have seen any and every injury merely by wishing it. Now I was blind.” 

In this passage from the opening chapter, Breq expresses her continuing frustration at the loss of the broader awareness she enjoyed as a ship. Her ancillary bodies provided her with implants and tracking devices, extending her perceptions beyond those of the ordinary human senses. It was this ability to monitor other’s internal states by tracking their vital signs that helped make a ship’s relationship with its captain so intimate. Now, she is unable to read Seivarden’s responses the same way and doesn’t understand her own impulse in stopping to rescue Seivarden.

“‘You used to horrify me,’ said the head priest to me. ‘The very thought of you near was terrifying, your dead faces, those expressionless voices. But today I am more horrified at the thought of a unit of living human beings who serve voluntarily. Because I don’t think I could trust them.’” 

The head priest expresses her deep disquiet with ancillaries, soldiers created by linking the body of a prisoner of war to a ship’s artificial intelligence. Ancillaries have no facial expression. Later, to pass as a human, Breq must constantly remember to make appropriate expressions. The head priest also acknowledges that ancillaries are far more predictable than human soldiers, who have begun to replace them. The debate over the use of human soldiers versus ancillaries is a source of great controversy within the Radch.

“One, two, my aunt told me

Three, four, the corpse soldier

Five, six, it’ll shoot you in the eye

Seven, eight, kill you dead

Nine, ten, break it apart and put it back together again.” 

Non-Radchaai, those on the receiving end of the violence of annexation, call ancillaries “corpse soldiers.” This children’s song, overheard by One Esk while patrolling the city of Ors, shows the fear that ancillaries inspire.