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During his thirty-second and -third years, Octavius was working as an aide on the Hospitalus Primus deck (an entertainment and quarters deck appointed in extraordinary style, for visiting dignitaries), when he was assigned to be the valet of
Ursa Iolanta Mendroza, a rogue trader who had dealings throughout the Calixis sector, and a trading partner with both the Kassandoras and the D'Raliers. A keenly perceptive man, he recognised Octavius at once, and, familiar with the tale of Octavius's mysterious disappearance, instantly fell to the floor with laughter.
Ursa had been coerced into direct service of the Kassandoras following a broken trade-deal, and now was required to conduct his affairs under the watchful eye of Kalinin. Because of this, throughout his stay of eighteen months he took great delight in parading Octavius under the unsuspecting noses of every Kassandora that boarded the ship, and retained Octavius as his valet for his entire stay.
The two became excellent friends, and, at least in private, the line between master and servant began to blur a little. Ursa began to give some weight to Octavius's opinions on trade, culture and diplomacy, but, as Octavius later noted in his memoires, not enough. Ursa was a man who rarely took advisement well, especially when it turned out to be better than anything of which he had thought. This stubbornness, together with his great aptitude for financial bungling, was what had landed him in his current predicament. After one such unfavourable trade deal, whispered among the Kassandoras at a family function, a joke was made among one of the gaggles of giggling ladies that Ursa and his manservant had spent so much time together that they had even become to look like one another. Thereafter, Octavius began to form a plan.
Octavius began to involve himself more and more in Ursa's affairs, sharing late-night discourse with him on his business, charmingly and subtly inveigling himself into Ursa's confidence. They shared food and wine, and on those shared vittles Octavius grew to resemble Ursa in figure. In secret, Octavius fashioned small wire frames to put into his mouth to push out his cheeks. He imported rare poultices to tighten skin here, relax muscle there. Paste to darken the lips. Oils to darken the eyes. Every night he entered Ursa's bedchamber to study him as he slept.
As his preparations neared completion, Ursa was taken on a hunting trip by Morvran Kassandora. Their destination was a small hunting lodge on one of the moons of Dusk. Their intention was, as had become something of a fashion among the more cowardly of the noble class, to spend time in a location very close to an extremely dangerous biosphere like Dusk, ostensibly to launch forays into the hunting area, while in actuality to remain sealed inside a fortress-like construction of plasteel and concrete, on an airless moon totally devoid of life. During their stay, various traders and agents for huntsmen would bring trophies to the lodge for perusal and purchase by the guests.
A few days into their seclusion, Octavius enacted his plan. When serving amasec one evening, he, with deliberate and calculated carelessness, spilt a glass onto the lap of Ursa Iolanta Mendroza. The cost of the contents was roughly equal to the worth of an entire season's yield from one of Ursa's (many) synth-o-gunk mega-plantations, but the cost was as nothing next to the magnitude of the personal shame and insult felt by Ursa in that moment.
Ursa, stunned by his manservant's unexplainable lapse in an otherwise flawless career, was speechless. After a moment, Morvran, seeing that Ursa seemed likely to remain silent, took up his own glass and flung it powerfully at Octavius's head. He launched into a blistering rage, rising fully from his chair in the process, spitting curses like warpfire. His hand went to his laspistol's grip, but Ursa stood and interposed himself his better and his convincingly cowering servant. Ursa pleaded with Morvran to calm himself, and that he would reprimand his manservant privately. Morvran relented, and Ursa led Octavius into his bedroom.
Ursa began wringing his hands and pacing. His gaze cast low about the floor avoiding Octavius, and his cheeks flushed.
"Octavius, I find myself perplexed... how could you have made such a blunder?" He half-turned and looked into Octavius' eyes in a strange, perhaps even frightened manner.
"It will not happen again, my Lord."
"It had better not, for my sake
and your sake. I confess..." His hand went to a glass of amasec standing on a table.
"Lord?"
He took a long gulp, and coughed.
"I don't know what I'd do without you, Octavius. Morvran is not a man to irritate, as you well..."
"Lord?"
His gaze had become glassy, distant.
"I must confess... I have never had a friend l..."
He collapsed. Octavius caught him before he fell. The contact poison on the rim of the glass had at last worked its way into Ursa's hardened and embattled system.
Octavius worked quickly. He applied the various elements of his disguise while directing loud and venomous insults at the sprawled Ursa, in Ursa's own voice. He stripped him and dressed him in his own servant's clothes, while dressing himself in Ursa's starched Navy jacket and tight trousers.
Octavius returned to the smoking room, straightening his jacket in Ursa's nervous manner. Morvran, reclining in a dark jotta-wood suspensor-assisted chair, looked up from the fire. He poured a drink for Octavius.
"I'll say it again, Mendroza, the way in which you treat that manservant of yours is most improper."
Octavius took the drink, but said nothing.
"Sometimes I even think that you're the servant and he's the master." Octavius noted a small smile creeping over Morvran's face, but what it meant he couldn't guess, at the time.
They conversed for a few hours more, until a soft groaning and sounds of heavy footsteps came from Ursa's room.
"Mendroza, what on Holy Terra is your man doing in there?"
After a few moments, Ursa, looking indistinguishable from Octavius earlier in the evening, staggered out, doubled over, clutching his head.
"Drunk! By the Blessed Golden Throne, I'll not wait for you this time, Mendroza!"
Morvran lurched upright and snatched his laspistol from his hip. He fired a bolt into Ursa's chest, who went down heavily, knocking over a small table.
Ursa lay prone, his back a bloody ruin where the lasbolt had exited. Morvran clapped for some of the attending servants to take the corpse away. Octavius muttered "useless fool", and stood slowly with his hands in his pockets. He looked down at Ursa's face, frozen in a state of addled confusion. As he had spent most of his life, Octavius reflected.
The servants rolled his body onto a stretcher.
A wheeze. "Oct-"
Ursa's head exploded in a shower of gore and bone fragments. Octavius lowered his bolt pistol.
"Useless fool."