If he makes Maitimo torture him for it that buys him quite a lot of time to think of a better lie.

"Findekáno, what's wrong? - Would it help if Maitimo went away?"

Well that's going to make Maitimo furious but on the other hand it is technically possible that he can wait out the indefinite length of time hiding behind Maitimo's boyfriend whenever they don't want each other - unless they both - but he'd liked Cam - 

"...gonna take that as a yes. I'll be inside."

And he leaves.

And doesn't offer any instructions, which is strange.

"...so what's the matter?"

It is very plausibly a ploy to get it out of him more readily. But -

"There was a civil war. My father had his father assassinated.  When my Maitimo heard he reacted - strongly - and I'm afraid for the alternate version of my father in this timeline, if this Maitimo learns that's what happened."

"...okay. Well. I can bring back the chipped Elves, remember, if they start pulling crap like that."

"Right. Thanks."

"I'm not expecting it particularly but I figure a practically-grounded assurance might be more comforting than 'but he would never do thaaaaaaat', right?"

"Very much so. Um. Sorry about that. You mentioned - not wanting to deal with - drama -"

"Yeah, by 'drama' I mean in Singularity they make immature snide remarks, I don't mean assasssinations."

And neither of those are what he'd been parsing that as - 

- he blinks at Cam - "for the purposes of oaths, am I supposed to treat them all the same or not - and what do I do if they ever disagree -"

"I beg your pardon?"

"If they disagree and I've adopted an interpretation where I just obey any of them I think that might count as contradicting oaths - might not, or they might come to an agreement rather than do that to me for too long, but -"

"What oaths are you under?"

"Obey conscionable orders, don't raise a hand to him, protect him with my life, let him read my thoughts whenever he asks. Don't leave the rooms, if I'm taken from the rooms come back and find him right away, don't enable or countenance or keep from him or participate in any effort to remove him from power. Unless pursuing my sincere best guess of what he'd want from me is incompatible with my standing orders and I am pursuing exactly my best guess of what he'd want from me, which I am trying to do but I'm not sure which of him count -"

"My suspicion is the safe way to handle this is to declare the Maitimos not the same person but to consider the one available here as an authority on what yours would want if you are unsure of your best guess. Also: what the fuck."

"Probably, yeah. Did - the one here ask you to handle me, is he okay with me talking with you -"

"I am not telepathic, he is only chip-telepathic, and you would have seen me reading any notes he delivered," Cam says, "the sum total of the interaction between us since you arrived was observable to you - and also oh my god."

Blink.

"...can you give me a general idea of what your-Maitimo-properties you are using for best guess construction, here."

"He wants to win the war. That's why I didn't leave immediately, if I stay you said you can eventually give me things to do that with. He wants to stay in power, hasn't been relevant, I can close my door behind me if I conclude this Maitimo might want to take it from him. He wants me - usually he'd be very opposed to sharing but I don't have a good guess on sharing with another version of him, I am tentatively going with that he might take it out on me but he doesn't actually prefer I, like, fight this one or avoid him or try to get protection from him or something, that'd be picking up bad habits -"

"Are you pretty confident the war is top priority?"

"Definitely."