 Why was the Circus is danger of closing?
The Blue Behemoth By LEIGH BRACKETT Shannon's Imperial Circus was a jinxed space-carny leased for a mysterious tour of the inner worlds. With Shannon's Imperial Circus, the Greatest Show in Space, plastered so thick with attachments...." I've wet-nursed Shannon's Imperial Circus around the Triangle for eleven years, and I know. Nobody insults Buckhalter Shannon's Imperial Circus to Buckhalter Shannon's face unless he's tired and wants a long rest in a comfy fracture-frame. It has always been my desire to lighten the burden of life for those less fortunate...." It was Gow, our zoo-man—a big, ugly son-of-a-gun from a Terran colony on Mercury. The extreme rarity of the animal...."
 They were out of money and out of options.
 They lacked impressive skills now that more of their kind had surfaced.  They were out of money and out of options.  They were no longer able to manage the lot of animals they had acquired.  They were too inebriated to be coherent.