“Granpa? Diplomat… ? Have you gone bonkers?”

“Why does everyone react that way?” Papa asked. “I’m a perfectly diplomatic person.”

Nathan gave Cally a wry grin.

“He’s the only one who can,” the monsignor said, serious again. “As bad as things are, they’ll only meet with a clan head — O’Neal’s clan head. We’re all going to be making some sacrifices and doing things we’d rather not. From the point of view of the Galactics, the only way to ensure that Clan O’Neal isn’t going to go rogue, again, is to have agreements with the Clan Leader.”

“If I promise you won’t kill any more of the nomenklatura without authorization, they’ll accept that as an unbreakable promise,” Papa said. “Which it will be, granchile o’ mine.”

“Yes, O Great and Powerful Oz,” Cally said flippantly.

“Which means that we’re all going to have to be doing things we’d rather not,” O’Reilly said. “I will be without my right arm, for example, since he’ll have to go with Papa. His assistant will therefore have to speed up her learning curve, something that is good for her but not welcome. Which brings us to your second job. Although in normal line of succession your father would be clan head, that’s not… appropriate at this time. You will, therefore, be acting clan head in your grandfather’s absence.”

“Which means you get all the headaches of running Clan O’Neal,” Papa said with an evil grin. “Like herding Bengal tigers that is.”

Cally felt the beginnings of a crushing sensation in her chest, her face automatically defaulting to an expressionless mask. Perversely, the first coherent thought to wander through her head was that this would ruin Christmas, and how was she going to tell Shari.

“Don’t get used to that feeling,” O’Reilly said. “You have a lot of material to cover, and then you can expect a lot of practical work. In an area that is about as far from your skill set as any I can imagine.”