Joe Haldeman

“Pleasta Meetcha, Bob. Likewise, Sarah. Call me, uh. . .“ The only twentieth-century language in which Three-phasing’s name makes sense is propositional calculus. “ George. George Boole.”

I’m from the future and the past and other temporalities that you can’t comprehend. But all you need to know is that yiou must not write this Hemingway story. If you do, I or someone like me will have to kill you.

So he had to plan. The next time he pushed the button—if the simple linear relationship held true—the thing would be gone for over three days. Next time, over a month; then over a year. Then fifteen years, and way into the future after that.