（外文电子版资料）Niven, Larry - Last Days of Permanent floating riot club,the.doc

The Last Days of the Permanent Floating Riot Club By Larry Niven In its heyday the Club had numbered around ninety, and it was the most exclusive club in the world. Now a third of its members had quit, and a third were in prison or awaiting trial, and the remaining thirty-odd active members had lost a crucial something: confidence, enthusiasm, esprit de corps, call it what you will. We always knew it was coming, said Benny Sherman. He was a thick-set man, short and broad, made mostly of black hair and muscle. He waved a big, stubby-fingered hand at the south wall of the main room, where a commentator was spreading news of the outside world across a wall-sized screen. It was all over that screen, for years. Central Riot Control in Nebraska. Pictures of the building going up. They told us just how it was gonna work. They gave us a completion date. Twenty of us quit that same day. Nobody said anything. The voice of the commentator came through at low volume, speaking of the rumor that the Soviets had developed a self-teleporting spy cloak. The teevee screen was never off in the Permanent Floating Riot Club. That spy cloak, James Get-It-All (Goethals) said wistfully. Thatd be nice to have when a flash crowd goes sour. I wonder what are the chances of stealing one. Sure, said Willie Lordon. He was a featherweight, pinchfaced man, all birdlike bones and acid sarcasm. Cops coming at you from all directions: What do you do? You roll yourself up in your spy cloak, and as soon as it forms a closed surface its a displacement booth. Where are you now? He paused for effect. In a top secret headquarters in the Kremlin! You idiot. Better that than Central Riot Control. Willie snorted. Ive been there, said Benny Sherman. Inside its like a Rose Bowl without seats. Receiver booths, all around ,the lip of the bowl. You try to flick out of a place where the riot control is on, and you wind up dropping out the bottom of the booth. You slide all the way down to the bottom of the