She pictured Makish lying in his blood on the Boulevard of the Praxis in the High City. She could feel the weight of the gun in her hand.

 But who would ever know?she wondered. The Naxids were censoring the news. If she were to shoot Lord Makish, no one would know but a few witnesses. And even if word leaked out, the Naxids could claim that it was an accident, or an unlikely street crime, or hadn’t happened at all…there was no way to tell the population that this was a military act, an action by an officer of the Fleet against a traitor and killer.

 Sula could feel the energy draining from her at this thought. The reason for the creation of the secret government and its military arm was to let the civilian population know that the war hadn’t ended with the fall of the capital, that the legitimate government, the Convocation, and its Fleet were still active, would return, and would punish the rebels and those who aided them.

 The secret government had distributed its own clandestine newspaper,The Loyalist, sheaves of which Sula and her group had humped up and down the streets of the Lower Town, leaving copies in restaurants, bars, and doorways. Even that primitive form of communication was gone now.

 Sula turned as Spence came out of their bedroom, limping only slightly on her wounded leg. She had been shot through the calf during Hong’s ill-advised fight on the Axtattle Parkway, and was lucky—no arteries hit, no infection. The swelling had finally receded, and most of what was left was stiffness. Sula had prescribed Spence a regular routine of stretching exercises, and of walking back and forth in the apartment to keep the wound from stiffening.

 She hadn’t let Spence leave the apartment, even though she could have walked through the neighborhood with only a minimum of discomfort. Sula didn’t want Spence seen outside until she could walk normally. A limp attracted attention, struck the eye as awrongness. In fact, she didn’t want anyone on her team to attract attention, not when the situation was so unsettled, not when the attention might come from the Urban Patrol or from an informer.