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First, Leckie tightens the focus on the body. Our narrator thinks they know this person, but rather than using the common phrase “achingly” familiar, Leckie says that something is “itchingly” familiar, which unsettles us and gives us a sense of irritation. (If you’re a particularly suggestible reader, it’s even possible you just scratched when you read that.) Here we also get our first mention of “Radchaai”, and the fact that whatever it is, it has an idea about what “civilization” is supposed to look like. Our narrator’s current surroundings do not meet that idea. We also learn that our narrator has “urgent business of my own”—which lets us know that the narrator is preoccupied, but also that even we, the readers, aren’t allowed to know what that business is. Our narrator doesn’t trust us yet.