 Why was Kapper in such a state of disbelief when Bucky and Jig found him?
The Blue Behemoth By LEIGH BRACKETT Shannon's Imperial Circus was a jinxed space-carny leased for a mysterious tour of the inner worlds. It made a one-night pitch on a Venusian swamp-town—to find that death stalked it from the jungle in a tiny ball of flame. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories May 1943. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Not hard enough to jar the ribs clean loose, just enough to spring them. "We," he said, "are broke. With Shannon's Imperial Circus, the Greatest Show in Space, plastered so thick with attachments...." "The Greatest Show in Space. I've wet-nursed Shannon's Imperial Circus around the Triangle for eleven years, and I know. It's lousy, it's mangy, it's broken-down! In short, it stinks!" 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. I had plenty of time to see his grey-green eyes get sleepy, and hear the quarter-Earth-blood Martian girl wailing about love over by the battered piano, and watch the slanting cat-eyes of the little dark people at the tables swing round toward us, pleased and kind of hungry. I had plenty of time to think how I only weigh one-thirty-seven to Shannon's one-seventy-five, and how I'm not as young as I used to be. He closed his eyes and smiled pleasantly and said, very gently: "Would you be collecting for the feed bill, or the fuel?" Bucky Shannon settled his shoulders and hips like a dancer. The little guy looked at Shannon with pale blue eyes like a baby, and his voice was softer than Bucky's. Bucky Shannon sighed, and let his fist start traveling, a long, deceptive arc.
 He was being poisoned.
 He was frantically searching for the male Cansin he had found  He had lost all his animals and was desperate to find them  He had been attacked by the Vapor snakes  He was being poisoned.